title: Did you hear the one about the policeman, the doctor and the pharmacist at 30000 feet?
abstract: This is the remarkable story of survival against all the odds. A passenger had a myocardial infarction complicated by a witnessed cardiac arrest while on a commercial flight through some of the most remote airspace on the planet. Immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation and use of an automatic external defibrillator achieved rapid return of spontaneous circulation. Passengers and crew worked effectively together, under the guidance of a physician, to provide critical care to the patient while the flight diverted so he could be transferred to an emergency hospital in Beijing for eventual thrombolysis and postresuscitation care. He made a rapid and full recovery to be discharged from hospital, neurologically intact, 10 days later.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthetics, Royal Free Hospital, London, UK.
authors.forename: David Thomas
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Monks
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Beijing United Family Hospital, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Springer
authors.affiliation: Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: Ramon
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Goomber
authors.affiliation: 13 Division, Toronto Police Service, Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: P C Ming
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000401:Aircraft; D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis; D058687:Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest / Q000209:etiology* / Q000628:therapy; D013997:Time Factors