Local ICU nurse steps in to help with medical emergency on Seattle flight to Maui

A medical emergency mid-air last month called for Morgan Davis, a local ICU nurse, to step in. Davis was on a flight from Seattle to Maui when flight attendants asked if there were any medical personnel on board. Davis told KIRO 7 she immediately raised her and jumped in to help.

“The lady that the incident happened with she had passed out, she hit her head pretty hard and so we puled her to the back of the plane,” Davis said. “You just kind of enter like a different mental state when you’re called.” Davis said a paramedic and a firefighter also stepped in to help out.

“All I could tell like on initial assessment was that she was very pale, her skin was very cold and clammy and she was very disoriented,” she said. Davis used the medical bag and the supplies in it that were on the flight. She took the woman’s blood pressure and started an IV.

“I needed to get fluid in her pretty quickly, they don’t have a pressure bag on board so I assigned one of the other gentlemen to literally squeeze as fast as we can all the fluid into her so we got a couple of liters into her,” she said. Davis said the woman began to improve and for the last hour or so of the flight they were able to get her back to her seat. Davis and the flight attendants checked on her every few minutes.

“She got to a point where she was more awake, less lethargic, she was communicating a bit more,” she said. The flight landed safely in Maui and Davis said the woman was taken by paramedics to a hospital. Alaska Airlines rewarded Davis with a $250 voucher.

“I don’t know how to explain the switch that happens but it’s just your duty,” she said.

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