Fasten Your Seatbelts: A Flight Attendant's Adventures 36,000 Feet and Below (29 page)

When the flight attendants walk through the cabin to do their safety compliance checks, they are looking for three major things:

One is that your seatbelt is fastened. When we check seat-belts, we are looking for the obvious; that everyone has one on. An overweight individual may be too embarrassed to ask for an extension or there might be a mother who has her seatbelt fastened around her and her child. The seatbelt should be fastened only around the mother with the baby held tightly in her lap. If an aborted takeoff occurred, for example, and the brakes were hit hard, the child could suffer internal injuries from the seatbelt.

The second is that your seatback is upright. I have seen several comedy potshots about the seatback issue. Does it really make a difference if your seat is back a few inches? If you are in an emergency evacuation and the person behind you is trying to get out of his row, it makes a big difference. The same goes for the tray table down. If you are in an emergency evacuation and your tray table is not up, it could prevent you as well as the person next to you from getting out in a timely manner.

The third thing is making sure the luggage is not blocking the exit row, and not lying on the floor in a bulkhead. The main reason for this is because there have been some emergencies where anything on the floor was basically a flying torpedo.

When Virginia was doing her compliance checks, she noticed that 9BC still had their purses on the floor. She went over to direct them once again. This time the FAA inspector rose
from his seat and appeared next to her. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said in his intimidating voice. “Which part of what Virginia asked of you did you not understand?” He asked them for their name and address and gave them each a personal fine. He continued, “If Virginia had not asked you to put your belongings up, she would be getting the fine.”
Yikes!

I have had several inspectors on my flights throughout my career. When word spreads that they will be checking us, the flights attendants scramble to the back of the aircraft making sure our manuals match everyone else’s and are up to date. They’re not there to make trouble for us; they just want to make sure we’re in compliance.

On one particular flight we were on our last leg of a four-leg day to Nashville. Most of the time when the plane is not full, the agents leave the last row available so the flight attendants can have a place to rest after the service and keep an eye on the cabin. We usually place our bags on the seats to let the passengers know they are taken. After all, we need some pampering whenever we can get it. The only problem on this flight was that I left my bags on the seat for takeoff and landing, which is a no-no.

Cynthia and I did our beverage service in coach. After picking up the cabin, I collapsed on the last row aisle seat. In the other row adjacent to me was a mechanic who worked for
us. I quietly shared with him my story about the light fuse that was smoking on my flight. I wanted to get his opinion.

Little did I know, the man sitting in front of me was actually with the FAA. The captain said to prepare the cabin for landing. Cynthia and I picked up the cabin and did our safety checks. She did what she was supposed to do and took her jumpseat. I, on the other hand, wasn’t finished with my story. I continued until I heard the landing gear. I told the mechanic I would be right back.

So I sat on my jumpseat just before the wheels hit the tarmac. I gave the aircraft a little time to do some maneuvering on the runway and then ran back to finish my story, leaving my exit basically unmanned. It was still close to me, but I am not supposed to get out of my jumpseat.

When I finished my story, I sat down on the jumpseat again. The captain said, “Flight attendants, prepare for arrival.” I disarmed my door and went back to the last row. Everyone deplaned the aircraft except for one passenger. It was the man sitting in front of me. He said, “Ladies, I need to have a word with you.” He took something out of his pocket and snapped it to reveal his FAA badge. I looked at Cynthia and saw the color drain from her face. “I’m with the FAA,” he said. He looked me in the eye and pointed to the last row. “Are your bags supposed to be there for takeoff and landing?” Then he turned to
Cynthia and asked, “Are your bags supposed to be under the seat blocking the emergency equipment?” We didn’t defend ourselves because we knew we were busted. I shriveled my nose and shook my head no. Cynthia did the same. He said he wanted to make sure we knew they were out there watching us. It took poor Cynthia a day or so to recover from that one. I was lucky and grateful he didn’t fine me for getting out of my jumpseat.

t was an early morning flight from West Palm Beach to D/FW. The plane was packed as usual with only a spattering of empty seats. Just before departure, a young man dressed in a white muscle shirt came barreling down the aisle completely out of breath. His shaved head was covered with sweat dripping down onto his bulging tattooed muscles. He was carrying a number of oversized duffle bags. All the passengers’ eyes followed him to the back of the aircraft with an obviously disapproving and disgusted look. My initial thought was,
I wonder why on earth the agents let him on the airplane with all those oversized bags
.

He made his way back to the very last row and placed some of his bags on the seat. He opened the overhead bin above his seat and saw that it was full. He opened another one that was also full. I jumped in and started opening up the bins until I found one I could rearrange to accommodate his luggage. He
crammed his bags in the overhead bin and drenched in sweat, headed to his seat.

I retreated to the galley, thinking how inconsiderate he was. I went above and beyond to help him and he didn’t even thank me. I went on and on in my own negative thoughts. I glanced at him while he struggled to catch his breath as sweat poured down his body.

All of a sudden a voice came deep from inside me that said, “Don’t judge him; be kind to him.” I stopped dead in my tracks. I wanted to ask the other passengers, “Did you just hear that?” You know how I am with my inner voice and immediately obeyed. I poured him a glass of water and handed him paper towels for his sweat. He slept for the entire flight.

Two days later, I was now working D/FW back to West Palm Beach. Renee, the flight attendant I was working with, asked if I remembered the muscle man we had on our flight two days prior. I nodded my head yes. “Well, he’s on our flight again today. He said his friend had committed suicide and he was the one that found him dead. He was heading to Dallas for the funeral. Those huge bags he was carrying were his departed friend’s belongings to give to his family.” I thought back to how I initially judged him like everyone else, but was so thankful I didn’t act on my emotions.

I went up to him and said long time no see. He looked at me with humble gratitude. “Hey, you’re the flight attendant who was so nice to me.” I told him because of his circumstances, I am glad I was.

This was such an important lesson to me: you never know what someone is going through personally and how important it is to be kind to people no matter what.

ur last day of our 3-day trip was a doozy; Philadelphia to Miami, Miami to Washington, and Washington to Miami.

We had a very early pickup from our hotel that morning, sign-in by 6 a.m. taking off around 7 a.m. Laura and I were working in the coach cabin on a full 737 aircraft with 144 passengers.

After reaching a safe cruising altitude, we took the cart out in the aisle to complete our beverage service. At row 18, a female passenger had her leg halfway out in the aisle. “Ma’am, you need to move your leg, ma’am. Wake up, ma’am, we need to get by,” both Laura and I chimed. There was no response. Laura was the one facing her and realized something was wrong. “Are you okay?” she questioned. Again, there was no response. She was unconscious.

We heard a voice a few rows back, “Mom?” Three of her daughters were traveling with her, along with her best friend.
They were anticipating going on a fun filled Caribbean cruise. “I am a nurse,” said one of the daughters.

Laura and I quickly pushed the cart back to the galley. We obtained the oxygen from the overhead bin. The woman was unconscious but breathing. Our procedure is to give her oxygen. I ran to the number one flight attendant and said the words that none of us ever want to hear on an airplane: “We have a possible code red.”

Code red is a signal to get the defibrillator, medical kit, and the bag that contains the mask and gloves for CPR. A defibrillator or AED is a piece of emergency equipment that can monitor the heart thru padded sensors. If the patient has no pulse, the monitor may advise you to shock the person or to start CPR.

The number one flight attendant called the captain to let him know the condition of the passenger. She also made a PA announcement asking if we had a doctor or medical personnel on board.

There was one passenger call light that went on. I was getting the medical equipment, so Laura got the light. We already had the oxygen on the passenger. A doctor, along with the patient’s daughter, were our official helpers. We had a nurse technician sitting in the same row as the patient. She was actually more of a hindrance than a help.

The doctor asked for a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. The nurse technician kept yelling, “Get the AED on her, get the AED on her.” I finally said to her, “Ma’am, we have been trained for emergencies and are following our procedures. We have the AED and all medical equipment right here if necessary.”

The patient’s daughters said she has fainted before, but this didn’t seem like a fainting spell. She wasn’t coming out of consciousness. The captain said he didn’t want to take any chances with the passenger, so he made the decision to divert to Raleigh and take her off the aircraft.

After a while, she started to fade in and out of consciousness. I put a cloth with ice on her forehead and turned the vents on for air. She took off her mask and mumbled she wanted to lie down. The heckler in the background shouted again, “Get the AED on her.” Then I thought,
Please don’t die on me, I don’t want to be haunted by that nurse technician’s voice
. With everyone in agreement, we decided to lie her down and go ahead and monitor her with the AED. This was easier said than done.