The Delta captain who taxied his 757 to the gate under medical distress had a ruptured appendix and needed emergency surgery. He is reportedly now doing fine after the ordeal, which resulted in passengers getting to their destination 90 minutes late. All reports indicate he’ll be back at work after recovering from the surgery. The flight was on its way from L.A. to Boston on Aug. 25 when the captain became ill and knew it was serious. “I need to go to a hospital,” he told air traffic control as the flight diverted to Wayne County/Detroit Metropolitan.
Before the plane landed in Detroit, the captain went on the PA and explained why they were suddenly descending in a hurry. “This is the captain. I am the one who is ill. Um, I am going to taxi the jet to the gate and then I need to go to the hospital,” he told them. There were 147 passengers on the aircraft and after the captain left the aircraft to meet paramedics, they remained on board while a relief crew that was available in Detroit joined the flight.
I’m not an MD, but my lay knowledge suggests appendices don’t rupture without significant warning signs hours in advance. Sometimes maybe we forget that the FAA trusts us to monitor our own health on a day-to-day basis to decide if we’re really fit to fly TODAY, not just when we took our last medical exam.
Good point Ron. But pilots have to be careful about using common sense self grounding these days because somebody might accuse them of practicing medicine on themself without a license.
ROTFLMAO!
More than half of appendicitis patients have some variation from the classic presentation; pain can be atypical, poorly localized, less severe, and occasionally tenderness can even be absent.
In my random sample of one case of appendicitis, the symptoms were very mild. It was only in the couple of hours prior to its rupture that it became really painful. This happened while I was in the hospital. My surgery was postponed several hours for more urgent cases. It was only after I went under that they found things had gone bad during the delays.
Again, a single anecdote. Yes, in my case there were warning signs, but hardly what I’d call “significant”. I’ve never been an airline pilot so I don’t know if they would or wouldn’t cancel a trip because of a ‘tummy ache’ that was probably due to ‘something I ate.’
May be an old wive’s tale, but worked for my wife…if the pain gets worse with jarring movement, go to ER ASAP! it may not be appendicitis, but could also be something else just as serious