REAL PEOPLE/MID-FLIGHT MEDIC
‘We have an infant not breathing’
Ten years after she left nursing, Tamara Panzino stepped in to help a family in crisis
USUALLY, I’M the last one to get into the center of things. I’m not the kind of person who goes towards drama. But on a flight several months ago, I heard a flight attendant calling, “Do we have a doctor on board? We have an infant not breathing.”
I spent a few seconds looking up and down the aisle, praying a doctor would come forward. I had been trained as a nurse, but I had quit working 10 years earlier.
“Do you see anyone standing?” I asked my husband.
“No,” he said. And then he stepped aside so I could get out of my seat, and I ran to the back of the plane.
A young man was standing in the aisle, holding a baby about 3 months old. Her head was lolling back and her lips were blue.
I started asking him questions like, had the baby been eating? Was it possible that she was choking? Once I was sure she didn’t have anything caught in her airway, the next step was to stimulate her. With such tiny babies, if you flick their heels and rub their feet, they’ll sometimes take a breath. I did that, then shook her chest and rubbed and pinched her thighs, and I began to see a bit of color come back into her lips. So I went through the whole pattern again. A flight attendant brought some oxygen, and that helped the baby’s color return too.
Panzino met Devin McFall, above, and baby Anjale in a scary moment.
After a while, they did locate a doctor, and we all moved up to the front so she could examine the baby.
That’s when a young woman came up to me—I hadn’t even noticed her, I was so laser-focused on the baby. I asked, “Are you the mother?” and she said, “Yeah.” And then she just started crying, and I hugged her and reassured her. We stayed at the front of the plane, hugging and talking and watching closely until we were all confident the baby was OK. Then we took our seats. The parents were both great, so strong. And so young—this was their first baby. But everyone looks young to me these days.
The pilot called ahead for an ambulance to meet our plane on the tarmac, and the little family were the first ones off. As they left, the father held the baby up in the air and everyone on the plane stood up and clapped. It was something else.
There had been a TV meteorologist on the plane. He made a news report, and suddenly I was getting all this attention. Reporters would ask me, “How does it feel to be a hero?” But to me, a hero is someone who puts themselves into harm’s way in order to save someone else. I didn’t do that. All I did was offer my knowledge to help. I think we all have a responsibility to do that when we can. —As told to Niamh Rowe
Tamara Panzino, 49, is a woodworker and craftsperson in Evans City, Pennsylvania.