Dr. Knight on Good Morning America

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• Uploaded: 2010-07-03
• Duration: 351s
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Dr. Knight on Good Morning America discusses upgrading medical equipment on domestic airlines.

Transcript

foreign TLC this morning when you're up in the air and a medical emergency strikes there's really no place to go in no way for outside help obviously to get to you and that is why several U.S carriers have finally finally bowed to pressure

to upgrade the medical equipment carried aboard all of their flights American Airlines says it will soon begin re-equipping its domestic Fleet and other carriers plan to do the same by Year's End our Dr Nancy snyderman is joining us now to show us what the

change could mean to Travelers welcome hi Charlie this is one place where the international carriers have been way ahead of our American carriers because most international flights do carry small portable defibrillators have so for years but United States regulations

on what gear and aircraft must have on board well they haven't been updated in more than a decade and unfortunately that result as you're going to see in this report has sometimes been tragic December on a flight to Miami 25 year old LaShawn Royals heart stopped beating

Dr John Knight a passenger on the plane tried to revive her but said he was unsuccessful partly because the plane was not carrying the proper medical equipment a defibrillator to restart her heart and an endotracheal tube to clear her breathing passage I felt helpless

I felt that I was watching someone around with the ability to possibly make a difference and didn't have the the life raft to get out there to provide that life raft Dr Knight has made it his mission to convince Congress to demand Airlines be

better prepared for medical emergencies passengers are far from safe on board Airlines right now it wasn't until 1996 that the airlines began keeping count of medical incidents in the air that year out of 600 million passengers there were about ten thousand

such events ranging from manly headaches and nausea to seizures and heart attacks most medical emergencies can be dealt with once you're back on the ground but if your heart and lung stop while you're up in the air you only have about 10 minutes to be revived and that can be a

problem since the average airliner takes 20 minutes to get back to the airport if you don't get immediate help you're likely out of luck plug-in pads connector next to flashing light the FAA hasn't upgraded its requirements for onboard medical

equipment in 12 years some carriers like Delta are voluntarily installing defibrillators and training their flight attendants to use them shock advised it is foolproof it interprets the heart rhythm it it displays an electrocardiogram on the monitor it

makes all the decisions for us stay clear of patience I'm clear I'm clear deliver shock now shots delivered without this device I I would have never made it my heart stopped Robert giggy was clinically dead his heart stopped

suddenly on board an American Airlines plane fortunately there was a paramedic on the flight and the plane was carrying a defibrillator in less than two seconds it had started the heart it had sent the voltage by the third second the heart was started his

jaw had locked they could not get air into him the paramedic and the American Airlines crew had the training it took not only to use the equipment but to unlock the jaw and to get oxygen into him Robert Gigi was lucky the defibrillator and the

paramedic saved his life but medical personnel are often reluctant to step forward on an airplane for fear of being sued and Dr Knight is pushing to change that too there's not a federal Good Samaritan law that essentially would apply to airplanes and until that that's

there a lot of Physicians particularly with all the publicity now are not going to get out of their seat to help it's been nearly five months since Dr John Knight's frustrating attempt to save the life of LaShawn Royal he continues his fight to get Congress and

the FAA to force all Airlines to improve in-flight Medical Aid because how many 25 year old lives should be lost or any lives for that matter in March Congress did pass a bill that will create a federal Good Samaritan law

and direct the FAA to consider requiring all Airlines to carry defibrillators and updated medical kits now I have one of these kits here and I should tell you that just the other day I was asked you know is there a doctor on board and I opened up the kit and it was laughable

there was nothing in it this is one of the new and improved ones it has all kinds of stuff in it including in case you're perhaps a physician and you haven't kept up with everything a little how-to guide on some of the more recent things but all kinds

of very important medications including things for low blood sugar Valium all kinds of stuff for a starting heart tubes and even more important these are the tubes laryngoscopes for being able to put a tube down someone's breathing passage and breathe for them and IV bags

finally things that can make a difference and literally on the air saves somebody's life and this is the defibrillator that's the defibrillator and flight attendants will be trained to do this so it's going to work and I must tell you it's about time and it's taken

so long just because the airlines are worried but we are worried about being sued yeah all right good news Nancy thanks very much foreign