First Aid Corps

A pediatriac dentist of 32 years, the last thing Dr. Martin Kaplan of Stoughton expected on his return flight to Logan Airport from a vacation in the Grand Caman Islands on Feb. 27 was a medical emergency.

That was until a flight attendant uttered those fateful words to the passengers: “Is there a doctor on board?“

There were two doctors, in fact, and an EMT. Kaplan, the first to respond, found the heavyset man slumped backward in his seat near the First Class section.

“He was definitely, clinically dead from the first point I saw him,” said Kaplan, 59, president of Kid Care Dental, 1613 Central St. in Stoughton. “I didn’t think about anything except helping this guy.”

“He was a big guy, difficult to move out of his seat,” said Kaplan, who managed to drag the man out of his seat and lay him down in the aisle.

Kaplan was then handed an onboard automatic external defibrillator. He waited for the charge signal. Then he applied a shock to his patient’s chest – and waited.

Nothing.

Kaplan reset the defibrillator and applied another shock. Again, nothing.

Relying on his CPR training Kaplan began applying chest compressions for the next three or four minutes.

Suddenly, he noticed the man had a pulse and his eyelids began to flutter.

Finally – he got a pulse.

Slowly, groggily, the man regained consciousness.

Throughout the unexpected ordeal, Flight 1734 was on its way for an emergency landing in Durham, N.C. Kaplan said that with all the excitement he had lost track of time.

The unidentified man was later taken off the plane and to a hospital.

Kaplan returned to his seat to a round of applause from the other passengers.

He is happy with the knowledge that was there at the right time to help out.

“That was pretty cool. It was just so surreal,” he said.

The Frontier Airlines flight had been in the air only 15 minutes when Linda Upchurch looked over and saw her husband convulsing, before slipping into unconsciousness-his mouth open and his eyes in a fixed stare.

She summoned flight attendants, who quickly began resuscitation efforts, capped by the use of a defibrillator. Her husband’s heart started beating again.

She and her husband, Mike Upchurch, of tiny Lamar, Okla., about 90 mile southeast of Oklahoma City, were reunited Monday at Will Rogers International Airport with the airline crew and others who came to his aid last March after he suffered a heart attack while on a flight from Oklahoma City to Denver.

One of the flight attendants was Emmett Adams, a longtime paramedic.

Adams estimates it was “within four minutes” from the time fellow attendant Sylvia Price was summoned and the time Upchurch was revived after being taken to the back of the plane. Pilot Paul Francois brought the plane back to Oklahoma.

“I don’t remember anything about the flight until I came to in the ambulance on the way to the hospital,” Upchurch said.

A few days later, he underwent successful bypass surgery at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City.

“What do you say to somebody who saved your life? Thank you is not enough,” Mike Upchurch, 55, said. “It was just God’s hand on me that put me in your hands.”

We will be reporting on lives saved around the world since our first documented life saved here in Singapore. 

Lori Broadbent RN (right) & Patty Sheehan RN

“I was sitting behind Patty, and when I saw her jump up, I just automatically jumped up,” said Broadbent.

Seconds later, she found herself with Sheehan and LIJMC’s Maria Giraldo, RN, BSN, kneeling over a man who wasn’t breathing and had no pulse.

“I just remember we all said, ‘He has no pulse and he isn’t breathing.’ Then we just each went to work,” said Broadbent.

As Broadbent yelled for an AED (automatic external defibrillator) and emergency kit, Giraldo gave the man mouth to mouth and about 15 compressions.

Seconds later, Sheehan, a staff nurse who also works in nursing informatics, found a pulse.

Rescue Teams at Airport

“We probably had him back within 60 seconds — before the defibrillator arrived from the far end of the plane,” said Broadbent.

“We’re not used to all the accolades we’ve been getting for doing what we were trained to do,” said Giraldo. “Nurses save lives all the time, that’s what we do, and no one usually says, hey, good job saving a life. This time they are — and it’s nice.”