Ernie Applegate holds his new grandson soon after suffering a massive heart attack and being saved by a Delta flight crew he was driving from the airport.
It just goes to show you that you are more likely to die in a car accident than a plane crash, Delta flight attendant Noelle Banks says only half-jokingly.
Thanks to a well-trained flight crew no one died when a van driver carrying six passengers to a Denver hotel suffered a massive heart attack en route.
After a long morning that had begun at 4:40 a.m. Oct. 29, the crew was eager for its layover in Denver. Between texting and napping, they didn’t pay too much attention, beyond wondering if there was car trouble, when driver Ernie Applegate briefly pulled over to the side of the road — twice. Then he pulled back onto the road.
“Sir, are you OK?” Banks asked Applegate a short time later.
But Applegate was by then slumped over in his seat, unconscious, as the van kept speeding along a steep embankment on a congested expressway near Denver International Airport, said flight attendant Princeton Richardson.
Banks jumped from her seat behind the driver to grab the wheel.
“I was just scared because as soon as one of the pilots yelled to grab the wheel, I was on it and determined to keep us in a lane and not to let go,” Banks said.
Richardson dived for the floor and held down the brake with his hand. He stopped the van.
Everyone got out. The crew’s captain and another flight attendant, Crystal, pulled Applegate out of the van and away from traffic. The co-pilot flagged traffic, called 9-11 and tried to hail emergency vehicles to see if a defibrillator could be found right away.
The captain, Crystal and Richardson rotated performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation until a fire station crew arrived. They estimate it took 15 to 20 minutes until these paramedics came and took over — with their defibrillator.
“I was out. I was dead. I was finished,” Applegate said. “They saved my life. All of them.”
Applegate said he regrets the mistakes he made — trying to shake off fatigue, shortness of breath and chest pain, telling himself he could call in sick after he delivered the crew to the hotel.
Paramedics took Applegate to the University of Colorado Hospital where doctors placed a stent to restore blood flow to his heart.
Delta crew members visited him later that night in the hospital after they heard he was stable and cleared for visitors. They held the hands of his wife, daughter and son — and they prayed with them.
“The only reason I’m here is because they kept giving me CPR all that time,” Applegate said.
Later that night Applegate’s daughter gave birth to his second grandson. Applegate was there to hold him.
“I’m glad it wasn’t out with the old, in with the new,” Applegate said, laughing. “It was a joyous moment. I’m glad I’m here to build memories with him.
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