Shocked

Imagine a heart stopping at 35,000 feet, with no doctor on board. This book looks at that situation through two strands: a history of how defibrillators, standard equipment in hospitals and ambulances, came to be carried on airliners and handed to flight attendants instead of physicians, and a personal account by the man who helped make it happen. The story opens in 1998, when a passenger bound for Mexico was brought back to life by a flight attendant, only days after the devices were first installed on that aircraft. The passenger, Robert Giggey, regained his physical health, and his rescuer, flight attendant Shawn Lynn, came away changed in a deeper way, with a new sense of purpose and courage.

The author, David K. McKenas, is an aerospace medicine specialist who served as corporate medical director for what he describes as the largest airline in the world. In that role he was responsible for the health and safety of the millions of people who fly each year. He recounts how he pushed the defibrillator program through a corporate environment and a government bureaucracy that were not inclined to change, and how a long series of events in his own life and in the lives of others, which he calls miracles, shaped his path toward that work.

The book suits readers interested in aviation medicine, emergency response, and the human side of policy change, as well as anyone curious about what happens when a medical emergency occurs in the air.