00:00:00
had a medical emergency on a flight and they made that call. Is there a doctor on board? And I was faced with the
00:00:06
moment like, okay, do I volunteer? Do I just stay quiet? I don't know what to
00:00:08
do. But I volunteered. And it turned out after some investigation that a young gentleman was going into anaphylactic
00:00:15
shock. His throat was closing up due to an allergy. And I wasn't worried. I said, "Where's your EpiPen?" And he
00:00:21
said, "I don't have one. I didn't even know I had this allergy." So I asked the
00:00:25
pilot, "Can we land?" Pilot says, "Well, it's an hour and a half back to Canada
00:00:29
and an hour to Portugal, some island in Portugal. That's not enough time. His
00:00:33
throat's closing. He's going to die in 5 minutes. What can I do?" So, I opened
00:00:36
the plane's emergency kit thinking there's going to be some epinephrine in
00:00:39
there or an EpiPen. And there's no EpiPen. And I'm like, "Okay, what do I do now?"
00:00:45
There's no internet when you're over the Atlantic Ocean. So, there's nothing to
00:00:48
Google. But um finding that there is epinephrine, which is the same medicine that is found in an EpiPen, in a
00:00:55
different formulation, in a different dosage for a cardiac arrest. So when someone's heart stops, we also give the
00:01:01
same medicine if they're flatline, if they have a specific rhythm to try and
00:01:04
restart the heart. >> So it's a much thicker needle, much longer, not those cute little EpiPen
00:01:09
needles that just go into the side of your thigh. >> And I said, "Okay, well, I need to do
00:01:13
some rough calculations here and just uh guesstimate here because otherwise he's
00:01:17
going to lose his life." And right there in the first class cabin, we take off
00:01:21
his pants. We uh inject them with this huge needle. He's screaming. There's
00:01:26
like a little bit of blood coming out. I inject the medicine. I'm praying that
00:01:29
it's working. And fast forward that story. Uh I stayed with him for eight hours for the rest of that flight until
00:01:36
we landed. We didn't need to divert. I checked his blood pressure and pulse every 15 to 30 minutes. And uh we saved
00:01:43
his life. And you think that would be the end of it. You're like, "Look at
00:01:46
that. I did my doctor job and that's it. But I went and told that story on YouTube. Got almost 10 million views, if
00:01:52
not more now. I don't know what it's at. And um the Senate Majority Leader Chuck
00:01:57
Schumer calls from his office or his office calls and says, "Hey, uh I'd like
00:02:01
to get Epipens on planes. Can you stand with us and tell us your story to the media?" Yes. We tell the story. We call
00:02:10
on the FAA to make these changes. And now 70% of planes, I don't know what the
00:02:15
exact number is, but something like 70% of planes have EpiPens on board where that will never have to happen