If you fall ill on a flight, you have to hope
there is a doctor on board. So Dorothy
Fletcher can count herself lucky.
When she suffered a heart attack on a
transatlantic flight from Manchester to
Florida, she turned out to be on a plane
full of cardiologists.
Fifteen experts on their way to a
cardiology conference responded when a
stewardess asked for medical assistance.
They stood up en masse and rushed to
save Mrs Fletcher, 67, from Liverpool.
They fed drips into her arms and used an
onboard medical kit to control the life-
threatening attack.
The plane was diverted to North
Carolina, where Mrs Fletcher was treated
in the intensive care unit.
The grandmother had been travelling
with her daughter to attend her
daughter's wedding when she
experienced acute chest pains. Speaking
from her home in Liverpool yesterday,
Mrs Fletcher recalled: 'I couldn't believe
what happened. All these people came
rushing down the aircraft towards me.
The doctors were wonderful. They saved
my life.
'My daughter was with me and you can
imagine how she felt when all these
doctors stood up. I wish I could thank
them but I have no idea who they were,
other than that they were going to a
conference in Orlando.'
She spent two days in the Charlotte
Medical Centre after the heart attack on
7 November, but managed to attend the
wedding at Lake Berkeley, Kissimmee,
the following week.
Her daughter, Christine Penman, 32,
who married her fiance Gareth, said:
'2003 was my best and almost my worst
of years. We'll see in the new year by
giving thanks that my mum got through
what she did.
'We owe those cardiologists and the
airline so much. My mum wouldn't be
here today if it wasn't for those doctors
but in the rush, we didn't even know any
of their names - and we still don't.'. www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/5118.php

Grandma time never reach ni
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Time never reach my brother.