Raheel Khan, MD, specializes in pediatric infectious disease.
Last month he was on a flight to Europe for vacation when, in the middle of the night, the flight crew requested a doctor. A passenger was having seizures. He checked the patient and tried to stabilize her with what was available from the flight crew’s emergency kit.
The patient was taken to the back area of the airplane where a makeshift bed was made on the floor. Khan sat with the patient for five hours stabilizing her, checking vital signs, maintaining her airway and giving her oxygen. The patient continued to have seizures and was vomiting during this time.
Khan also was communicating with a physician on the ground in Iceland where the plane made an emergency landing so she could be taken to a hospital.
The plane’s crew and many passengers thanked Khan for his quick action and for staying by the patient during her seizures.
