This past weekend was another memorable and most satisfying experience, the reason I am in the medical transportation business, the business of helping others in time of need.

It happened on the weekend, Saturday afternoon around 1:50 PM. A call comes into the MED-Transport Center from the client/patient’s sister in Detroit asking for help to transfer her terminally ill brother in Tampa, Florida onto a previously booked Northwest Airlines flight from Tampa to Detroit.  The coordinator quickly gets the details only to find out that the client’s cancer metastasized to almost every organ, he has taken a serious turn for the worse in the past 10-12 hours, is becoming weaker and weaker, is no longer eating or taking any fluids, and may not be able to travel on the scheduled commercial airline flight. 

After obtaining the medical history, the daughter says, “Oh, by the way, the flight is scheduled for just after 3:00 pm today and my brother is on his way to the Tampa airport in a wheelchair transport van right now!!!

The coordinator explained it would be almost impossible to reach the on-call flight nurse,  pick up the medical bag, monitors, get medical clearance from the airline medical desk, and get to the airport an hour before the flight to make the scheduled flight.  All this must be done in ~ 45 minutes time from now, by ~ 2:40 PM for the 3: 40 PM scheduled departure.

The only choice was to ask the medical director who was working at the MED Transport Center to go on the flight and be the medical escort. “We have a  rapidly deteriorating  brother  who cannot afford ~ $ 13,000 to go by private air ambulance jet, and in his poor  condition cannot wait until tomorrow to make the flight home. Would you please go to the airport, determine whether the client could sit up for take off and landing, make the flight without any supplemental oxygen ( requires 24-48 hours advance notice) , and be the medical escort doctor on the flight?”  I could not say no.

By the way, you may not be paid for the flight, as there is no time to get payment or process a credit card at the airport.  I made a frantic dash with the medical equipment to the airport with just 2-3 minutes to spare, met the brother/client in the transport van at curbside, performed a brief physical in a corner of the lobby full of passengers, cleared him for transport, and raced toward customs. 

 Going through customs was interesting.  The client’s right arm and right side of his face starts twitching and a few seconds later develops into a full-blown shaking seizure of his entire right arm.  Of course, that draws many stares and the attention of everyone around us.  Explanations are given to security that j”he will be fine”, he has had these minor seizures before; he has a terminal illness (the cancer has metastasized to the brain causing the seizure). Thankfully, I being a physician, they believed me. Well, we made the flight all the way to Detroit with the help of oral morphine solution to make him comfortable during the painful lifting process out of the wheelchair and into and out of his seat.  I monitored his oxygen  levels with the pulse oximeter the whole flight, watched his color and breathing,  assured the attendants that he was fine despite the small recurring seizure and hoped  and prayed that he would  not require emergency oxygen from the flight attendant during the flight. I did not want to declare that we had an in-flight emergency. Thankfully, my passenger/client and I survived the flight and “we did just fine”. 

I was so thankful that we did not have to change planes, thankful that my client had diapers just in case;, (those airplane bathrooms are extremely small for two people) and grateful that we both made the flight.  In Detroit, the entire family plus good friends met us with cheers, and tears, and smiles. That made the whole trip worthwhile. God is good, all the time. HIS timing is perfect.