Be prepared for whatever life throws your way. That’s the motto that Scout leader Evan Gilder tries to live by.
Before heading out with 10 scouts from New York and New Jersey on a backpacking trip through the New Mexico desert this summer, he was trained and ready for any medical emergencies that might arise.
Gilder said he has been certified in CPR for the 14 years he has been a Boy Scout leader, but has never had to perform the procedure before.
He didn’t expect that to change on July 11 – at 30,000 feet in the air.
During a Southwest Airlines flight from New Mexico to New York, after the 100-mile backpacking journey, a flight attendant asked if there were any medical professionals on board.
Although a doctor and two nurses – one of whom traveled with the troops – offered, it wasn’t long before Gilder said he was also called to help.
A passenger in the front of the plane went into cardiac arrest, and the Boy Scout leader said it was clear to the professionals giving him CPR that more manpower would be needed to keep his heart beating until the plane could make an emergency landing. .
Gilder recruited two scouts from his troop.
CPR, a procedure consisting of strong chest compressions, is so tiring that a person can only perform it for a few minutes at a time.
The scouts, Gilder and the professionals, formed a line of four people and took turns performing chest compressions on the passenger, he said. With the passenger’s family watching from the front row, the team examined the plane’s medical kit exhausting possible treatments that could help.
They collected EpiPens – containing a small dosage of epinephrine usually used for allergic reactions – to try to help restart the passenger’s heart.
For more than 40 minutes, staff performed CPR in hopes of restarting the man’s heart, Gilder said. As the plane began an emergency descent into Pittsburgh, the crew asked volunteers to sit down and fasten their seatbelts to land.
One of the doctors, Gilder said, gently told the flight attendant that if they did so, the passenger would certainly die. Improvising, they compromised and transferred the patient to a row of seats where the CPR belt buckled, performing compressions in their seats.
Just before landing, they detected a pulse. The passenger’s heart finally beat on its own.
Paramedics took control and rushed the man to a hospital as soon as the plane landed.
The family, who were all sitting in the front row watching the emergency unfold, reached out to one of the doctors in the following days to thank them, saying the passenger was stabilized and sedated, Gilder said.
“People often ask me what Scouting is and my answer is always the same: Being prepared for what life throws our way,” Gilder wrote in an essay titled ‘A Story of Pikuach Nefesh (Saving a Life) ‘, which he distributed to acquaintances and friends.
The Boy Scouts are affiliated with the National Jewish Scouting Committee. One of the young men who helped with CPR is an Eagle Scout — the highest possible Boy Scout rank — and the other will be named an Eagle Scout next week, Gilder said.
In a statement, Southwest thanked the scouts for their help.
“We thank the Boy Scouts for volunteering, along with the medical professionals traveling on the flight,” a spokesperson wrote.
Immediately after the patient was removed from the plane, Gilder and the scouts thanked the other passengers on board who contributed EpiPens (which can cost hundreds of dollars), changed seats to help in the effort, or simply had their flights delayed.
The scout leader said he didn’t know what would result from his efforts, or whether the man would survive – but he knew that without the plane’s efforts, the result would have been a certain tragedy.
“We did what we needed to do,” Gilder said. “This guy has a chance, he’s breathing, he’s got a beating heart.”
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
