Emergency Landing

1200 kilometres south-southwest of Hawai’i
5 January, 2006, 6:30 am PST (which is 2:30 am NZ time on 6 Jan)

As we were taking off from LAX, the captain informed us that our estimated flight time from Los Angeles to Auckland was 12 hours. We were pleased especially since our own calculations estimated our flight time to be 16 hours. Four fewer hours in the livestock hold (those two seats smack dab in the middle of the centre row of a 747 jumbo jet) was good news indeed.

After three hours in flight from Los Angeles to Auckland, the head of the flight crew came on the intercom with the following announcement:

"Ladies and gentlemen, one of our passengers is feeling unwell. If there is a doctor somewhere in the cabin, would you please make yourself known to the flight crew. Thank you."

Not good news.

Is there a doctor in the house? It’s something you expect to hear in a film or on TV, but never in real life. Do people get suddenly, tragically ill on plane flights? Of course they do—and the longer your plane flight, the more likely someone is to do it on yours. Does someone ever really get up and shout, "Is there a doctor in the house?" Apparently they do. Do doctors then arise and exclaim, "Why yes, I am a doctor!" Well, they didn’t exclaim, but by my count of people hustling down the aisle our flight had two physicians and an EMT on board. They made themselves known to the flight crew and the murmur of curious and half-sleeping passengers died away.
Things moved along as planned (bearing 225 at about 40,000 feet) until an hour or so later, when the captain came over the intercom and informed us all that it had been decided the ill passenger in our midst required immediate medical attention. (Apparently two physicians and an EMT huddled together in cramped quarters at 40,000 feet and hurtling across the globe at hundreds of miles per hour did not count as "medical attention.")

So we went to Honolulu. That yellow line on the movie screen in front of my seat made a right-angle turn and headed for Oahu. Numbers changed: distance to our immediate destination fell precipitously as time to our intended destination climbed inexorably. And we saw Hawai’i again, or at least the portion of Honolulu international airport that is visible through the window (at night). We sat on the tarmac and waited while the medics got the unfortunate passenger off and refueled the jet. Meanwhile we breathed some more recirculated air and tried to stretch our legs.

I should have taken that Ambien like Sara did.

Well, the crew managed to get the passenger off to a hospital and the doctor returned to his seat. (I’m glad they made that emergency landing. It meant quick help for our unlucky passenger; and if I were the one falling ill on a trans-pacific flight, I’d want them to stop for me.) They got us refueled and in the air again. Now we’re approaching the equator with about seven (that’s four additional—but who’s counting with this groggy brain?) hours of flight time remaining. We’ll get to Auckland a little late (after 16 hours in the air after all), but we’ll get there. And that’s the important thing. Sometimes you just have to take a little detour, that’s all.

~emrys