It Pays To Be a Doctor on a Plane

I landed in Sydney about 8:00am. I was only feeling slightly like a zombie, and I distinctly lacked the same pure enthusiasm and excitement that I felt when I arrived in Sydney the first time. I mostly just wanted to find my hotel and lay horizontally for the first time in over a day.

It had been a long trip. An hour drive to O’Hare, a four and a half hour flight to San Francisco, a 5+ hour layover, and an adventure filled fourteen hour flight to Sydney. The adventure began about half way into the flight. I had finished watching three episodes of Fawlty Towers and attempted for a long time to drift off to sleep. I’m not quite sure if it was actual sleep or just a lack of conscience, but I awoke with an urgent desire to vomit. Without considering fumbling for the airsick bag, I threw off my seatbelt, jumped up, and ran to the toilets. Since I was the second row up from the back of the plane, I didn’t have far to run, but when I reached the toilets I saw that they were occupied. I turned around and the next thing I know I’m on my back looking up at a number of faces.

“Are you okay? How are you feeling?”

“A lot better actually.” Amazingly I had not actually vomited.

“Just sit tight right there, I’m a doctor,” one of the faces said. He was the man who guided me to a sitting position, gave me some juice and cookies, and explained to me that fainting on planes was quite common. Basically a lot of my blood had found its way to my lower legs, and when I stood up quickly I threw my body into a state of confusion. I later learned that he and his wife had been sitting right behind me.

On these trans-pacific flights they stress that it’s a good idea to do some exercises for your lower extremities to keep the blood flowing so that it doesn’t pool. Fourteen hours is a long time to sit in one position, and I have always tried to get up and walk around a bit or use the toilet about every two hours on these marathon flights; however, I had been sitting for a good four hours watching the tiny screen on the back of the headrest of the seat in front of me and doing something like sleeping.

I felt both embarrassed and bad that I worried all these kind Qantas employees and all my fellow travelers at the back of the 747. I was expecting someone to laugh because, hey, I fall down a lot and I’m usually quite awkward looking when I fall, and I understand that it is a humorous thing to witness. But no one laughed and everyone was extremely kind and concerned for my wellbeing. Outside of feeling a bit shaky at first, I felt fine and never had the urge to vomit for the rest of the flight.

The kind doctor, a young looking Canadian, and his American wife were well deserving of the bottle of Dom that Qantas gave them for assisting me through my fainting episode. I felt bad that all I had to thank him with was my words, but he insisted that he was a doctor—a stroke specialist—and that’s what he does, he helps people. I got his email address, and I need to email him soon and thank him again and ask him how he is enjoying Sydney.

I suppose I was able to help him a little bit. I told him that if you buy something in the Duty Free shop before you reach immigration and customs, you are allowed to go to an express line to help expedite the process of being let into Australia. When I was in that express line I saw him a dozen or so people behind me and gave him a wave and a smile and he returned the same gestures.