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5.How many people have died flying with you?
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ONE. Ah, the famed "Weekend at Bernie's" flight.
Just a touch of background, I have WICKED bad luck flying. I've been stuck overnight in layover cities more times than I care to remember, but the "Weekend at Bernie's" flight was the worst.
This happened just over a year ago on my way from Tampa to Toronto. I can't remember where my stop was, I think Boston Logan but not sure / not important. It wasn't a full flight so everyone got to stretch out, I was thinking I had caught a lucky break. About an hour and a half into the flight I hear some comotion 2 rows behind me. Then I heard the flight attendant announce over the PA (I shit you not), "Is there a Doctor on the plane?"
Luckily there actually WAS a doctor on the plane, well, a Fireman with EMT training to be exact. There was an elderly person that was having diffuculty breathing and may have also been entering into cardiac arrest. They had oxygen tanks on board and were quick to employ them, but it didn't seem to help much.
The flight made an emergency medical landing, which in and of itself is scary since we had acheived our maximum flight altitude at the time the incident began. By the time we were able to get on the ground the person had already passed on. There were paramedics waiting for the plane at the gate, but the stretcher they had waiting couldn't fit down the cabin aisle so they wound up strapping the person into a wheel chair.
They also didn't let us deboard the plane, so everyone is still on board while all this is taking place. They also thought if they whispered no one would ever figure out what was going on (yeah right). Right before they wheeled the person out the coup de grace came- one of the flight attendants got the bright idea to put sunglasses on the deceased so it "wouldn't be disturbing" to the children on the flight. Real life Weekend at Bernies.
Sometimes I can be pretty shameless, but I have too much respect for the dead to take a picture. I did however snap this one on my phone during the emergency landing of the guy across the way praying:
When the plane started to dive it made that whistling / siren "speedeing bullet" sound you hear in war films when a fighter is dive bombing an enemy.
It was some pretty wild shit. After the deceased was off the plane we had to wait for the oxygen tanks to be replaced, which took close to two hours. I got into my connecting city roughly 4 hours behind, I got into Toronto just after midnight, missing my dinner meeting and missing a free show (some friends of mine happened to be playing the Phoenix that night and were kind enough to add me to the guest list). My luggage didn't get into town until the following night, forcing me to do some creative early morning shopping before my morning meeting- I felt like a bum changing clothes and putting on makeup in a public restroom.