6 ms·

Interestingly, the surgeon published a post-mortem case report titled "Managing in Flight Emergencies" in the British Medical Journal [1]. The title of the pub

• teetertater 5y ago
  Imagine if publication titles started being clickbait: "Hero doctors save woman / Surgery ON A PLANE [ambulance called] [near-death]" Some AI papers like the Yolo ones are ever so slightly like that already... maybe it's a matter of time.
• tsm 5y ago
  > The patient was now comfortable, felt well and we retired to our seats to recover. Eight hours later I was again summoned by the stewardess to see the patient, who had developed more chest pain and dyspnoea. > I found her sitting on the toilet with the underwater seal drain on a high shelf. All the water and air had syphoned out of the bottle into the chest. The crisis resolved when I placed the underwater seal drain on the floor—draining the water back from the chest to the bottle. The air bubbled out of her chest when she coughed. After a few minutes she was almost back to normal, but exhaustion precluded the completion of a third full medical report.
  • dmurray 5y ago
    Eight hours! It's hard to believe the woman's condition was critical enough to require invasive surgery with these makeshift tools mid-flight, but so stable post-op that the doctors did not recommend an emergency landing. I understand they recommended against landing pre-op because of worries about cabin pressure, but why not after the surgery? She's going to have to come down at some point.
    • patrec 5y ago
      Why further inconvenience everyone else for this moron, if they (clearly correctly) judged her no longer to be in danger?
      • gambiting 5y ago
        I really hope that doctors don't provide medical advice based on idiocy(or lack of) of ones actions. If she had to undergo emergency surgery in-flight with a coat hanger, I'm really surprised an emergency landing wasn't recommended by the doctor. The origin of her injury should have had zero bearing on it.
        • patrec 5y ago
          If only we would leave more of these decisions to arm-chair bien-pensants, second guessing two seemingly highly competent medical professionals. I am sure the woman in question would also really have appreciated being settled with the likely ruinous debts resulting from a medically needless emergency landing.
          • gambiting 5y ago
            I'm just saying I'm surprised such a decision was made, that's all.
      • manquer 5y ago
        Expecting decision making to be perfect after an accident like that is ridiculous. Bike perfectly valid and commonly used word for motorcycle in many parts of the world. The attempt to conceal comment seems to be doctor covering his errors after an inadequate physical exam before take off. Someone trying to conceal wouldn't complain of chest problems before take off. Most airlines would remove you from the plane before even doing an exam, and won't depend on eye doctors potentially flying to do it.
    • aqme28 5y ago
      I don't understand your point. If it's no longer an emergency, why require an emergency landing?
  • lupire 5y ago
    > underwater seal drain He's saying that the water bottle was draining fluid from her chest, but she/someone put the bottle on a high shelf, so it drained back into her chest. This is why you don't immediately leave post-operative patients to take care of themselves.
• mikkohypponen 5y ago
  Full content can be read via researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/W-Angus-Wallace/publication/282846464_Managing_in_flight_emergencies_-_A_Personal_Account/links/561e0dd408aecade1acb4661/Managing-in-flight-emergencies-A-Personal-Account.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/W-Angus-Wallace/publica...
• JackFr 5y ago
  > Interestingly, the surgeon published a post-mortem case report titled "Managing in Flight Emergencies" Literally NOT a post mortem