Is there a doctor on the flight? What happens when you fall ill on a plane (and what I learned when I did)

 Of course we’ve all heard the urban legends of the doctor who used a pen in-flight to perform a tracheotomy, and the woman who goes into labour mid-flight, but up until recently I’d never really considered what would happen if I became unwell in-flight. Much like how planes are propelled through the sky, it simply hadn’t occurred to me to give it much thought.

Until, that is, I needed one myself. Sat at the very back of a return KLM flight from New York, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, having bagged an entire row to myself. My plan for the flight went something like this: watch movie, read book, stuff self full of free food, wash it all down with a glass of wine, stretch self luxuriously across my vast expanse of seats and snooze my way to Schiphol.

There was my first mistake: smug planning is always destined to go downhill. It started with the arrival of a latecomer, who nestled himself down in the seat beside as I did my best not to shoot him evils.

Next came the in-flight meal. More smug planning: I’d pre-ordered the ‘healthy choice’, having (quite correctly) anticipated the amount of maple-syrup-covered-goodness I’d gorged upon while in the Big Apple might need to be followed by some serious vitamins.

The best thing about ordering something cantankerously different from anyone else is that you get your food first. And I, unlike most people, love plane food. It’s something about the tiny compartments and the obvious pleasure in the fact I don’t have to cook it myself.

I tucked in heartily, feeling like I’d at least got one up over the seat stealer beside me. Ha! Then the throat scratching feeling started. I looked down and realised there was a rash spreading across my chest and arms. This in itself wasn’t much to alarm me: I've had allergic reactions to food before, so I popped an antihistamine, fully expecting I’d be all good by the time everyone else was served their meals.

Instead I sat there, slowly grasping I was getting worse, not better. In the end that British ‘don’t make a fuss’ resolve floundered: I got out of my seat, bothered seat-stealer to move and caught the arm of a flight attendant for a glass of water. Then promptly did my best Victorian lady impression and swooned in one of those very embarrassing half-faints.

Here’s what I learned from the ensuing 4 hours:

• Every plane has a medical kit, but the purser can only administer certain things – so a trained medical professional is needed to do the rest
• Apparently doctors get bored on flights too. That, or I suspect they are just nicer people than the rest of us. “Is there a doctor on board?” resulted in not one but four of these very kind people volunteering their services
• You can hook an IV drip on practically anything
• Doctors are given vouchers of some sort as a thank-you by airline crew for helping out when they could have been knee-deep in prime in-flight movie viewing time

And some things I learned from the very sweet air steward who sat and chatted to me as I vomited my special half-digested meal into a bowl…

• The crew have their own little sleeping compartment on long-haul flights (again, something pretty obvious I’d never before considered)
• The New York- Amsterdam route often carries large animals, from those being moved from American to European zoos to the horses for teams in London’s Olympics
•  There’s always an animal carer or vet on every flight where animals are on board

 

So that’s what happens when you fall ill on a flight – mystery solved. In short, lovely staff pop you down, make you comfortable, call on heroic doctors and tell you amusing tales about life in the skies. 

If you’re very lucky they’ll even insist you take one of those buggies normally reserved for the elderly to transfer you to your next gate.
 

*Special thanks to the KLM staff and the doctors who helped me out. I never did find out what it was I’d eaten to cause such a fuss, and I’m still scoffing in-flight meals with just as much relish.