OKLAHOMA CITY—A Frontier Airlines flight to Denver returned to Will Rogers World Airport Friday morning after a passenger had a heart attack and was resuscitated with a portable defibrillator, airline officials said.
Frontier 188 had just left Oklahoma City about 7 a.m. Friday and was at 10,000 feet when a woman said her husband was having a medical problem, airline spokesman Steve Snyder said.
Flight attendants and off-duty medical personnel who happened to be on the flight examined the man and found he was unresponsive and appeared to be having a heart attack, Snyder said.
Using supplies on the airplane, they gave him oxygen and started an intravenous line. Chest compressions were initiated before an automated external defibrillator was used to restore his heart beat, said Dr. Mary Ann Bauman, one of those on the flight who helped the man.
The machines, which are required on commercial flights, can diagnose problems with heart rhythm and deliver an electrical shock to restore a normal heart beat.
“You hit the button, it zaps him, he got a heart rate, he started breathing again, he came to and asked for his wife,” said Bauman, a medical doctor who is a commentator on Oklahoma City television station KWTV.
The flight returned to Oklahoma City and the man was taken to a hospital, where he was reportedly doing well, Snyder said. He said he could not release the man’s name.
“It turned out to be a pretty amazing story,” Snyder said.
In addition to Bauman, another doctor happened to be on the flight, as well as two nurses, and one of the flight attendants was a former paramedic, Snyder said.
