Amber Neumeier the Saviour

At first, she didn’t respond because she was traveling with her 6-year-old daughter and didn’t want to leave her.

“But when no one else seemed to come forward, I headed to the front of the plane,” she said. “By the time I got up there, two doctors had stepped forward, but were still discussing who should assess the patient. They asked me what I did and I told them trauma flight nurse. That’s when they agreed that I was probably the best to handle the situation.”

It was her understanding that the man had gotten up to go to the restroom and fell in the aisle.

“He appeared to be nauseous and sweating, but was still conscious, so I did a blood sugar test,” Neumeier said. “Then the stewardess asked if I needed anything else, like the AED.

“I didn’t think I would really need it, but I asked her to go ahead and get it out. Shortly after this the gentleman rolled on his side and he passed out. I quickly hooked up the machine and it told me that he had a shockable rhythm. So I used the AED to shock him, we started CPR and the AED suggested another shock,” Neumeier said. “After the second shock he began breathing again on his own.”

The plane was only about 15 minutes from the airport when this happened and they radioed in declaring a medical emergency and were able to quickly land.

“There were paramedics ready when we landed and they took over the man’s care at that point,” Neumeier said. “The doctors and I had started CPR, and after using the AED a second time, the man opened his eyes and began breathing again on his own.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal, but I was glad I was able to help and that the plane had an AED on board.”

He appeared to be exhibiting signs of a heart attack with no actual chest pain. This is not completely unusual but he was lucky to have someone with medical knowledge including two physicians and a trauma nurse to help him.

Brian Delaney the Survivor with Zoe Moran the Saviour

On the tarmac at Wellington Airport, the 26-year-old flight attendant used a defibrillator to resuscitate Mr Delaney when his heart stopped just before takeoff.

Mr Delaney, 73, is recovering at Wellington Hospital, his journey from his Gisborne home to visit family in Dunedin on Thursday interrupted by his second heart attack in eight years.

He had been talking to the passenger next to him when his head started spinning – and after that he remembers nothing of the commotion on the 50-seater Air Nelson Bombadier Q300 until he came around.

“I looked up at five faces and thought, where the hell am I? It could be hospital, or in an an ambulance.”

Miss Moran said a passenger had run up to her to tell her a man was having a seizure, so she dashed to Mr Delaney.

“He was sitting in his chair, his eyes were rolling back in his head and his teeth were moving. I said he’s not having a seizure, he’s having a heart attack.”

She ran to get a defibrillator. Although one is carried on every Air Nelson plane, it was the first time one had been used. She gave Mr Delaney a shock with the defibrillator, and another passenger started chest compressions.

Miss Moran, who has worked for Air Nelson for 16 months, said her training kicked in and she went through the procedures she had learnt but never imagined she would use, while anxiously hoping the medics stationed at the airport would turn up.

“It felt like a long time … I was relieved when they got there, I had been starting to shake.”

Mr Delaney’s daughter, Kaaren Dooher, had been waiting for him at Dunedin Airport.

“When I saw the plane was delayed, I thought that better not be Dad. Then they paged me.”

Doctors will carry out further tests today to try to determine what caused Mr Delaney’s attack.

Yesterday, he had nothing but praise for the airport and hospital staff. And he was relieved his heart attack had not occurred minutes later. “If we had been in the air, I would not be here.”

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.

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.”

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.”