Airman puts new EMT license to use during flight home
A Wyoming National Guard airman who was flying home after finishing Emergency Medical Technician training at Keesler Air Force Base put that training into action mid-flight.
Airman First Class Nathan Johnson, a aerospace medical tech assigned to the 153rd Airlift Wing, had completed his training at Keesler and received his EMT license less than 24 hours before his flight home, according to a press release from the Wyoming Air National Guard
On the first leg of his journey, en route to Houston, a female passenger had fallen unconscious and the flight crew asked if any medical personnel were on board.
Johnson and another passenger, a former Navy firefighter who was a civilian EMT, responded.
“So he and I worked together to assess the patient,” Johnson said. “We made sure she was breathing and went through our EMS run sheet, answering questions like how conscious she was, whether her airway was secured, and if she was bleeding—things like that.”
With an hour left to fly into Houston, the decision was made to continue to the destination. Johnson and the other EMT continued to work with the patient until the plane landed.
“Once you’ve engaged with a patient from an EMT standpoint, you can’t leave that patient until you can get them to a higher level of care,” Johnson said. “I told the guy with me he could go, and I would stay with the patient because he had family waiting for him outside the airport.”
Johnson said he waited with the flight crew with the patient until medical personnel in Houston arrived. By then, he’d missed his connecting flight to Denver, but only had to wait a few hours for another flight and then on to Wyoming to be reunited with his family.
