A Sunwing flight attendant saved a passenger’s life who went into cardiac arrest as a pilot made an emergency landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport this week.
On Tuesday, Marisa Rodrigues was preparing for a standard landing of a Sunwing flight from Cancun to Toronto while on duty as the Cabin Safety Manager (CSM).
Then, a call light flashed a few times near the middle of the plane. As she got closer, she saw a woman having a seizure. Her body was in full convulsion.
“I noticed that her fingers and around her mouth and face started to turn blue and purple and her face was gray,” Rodrigues said. I had to take her from her seat, put her down on the seat, lay her down and start CPR immediately.”
Together with a nurse and medical school student who responded to the call, they lifted the woman from her seat and laid her down on the floor of the plane.
Rodrigues positioned the woman’s head between her legs and proceeded to push air into her lungs before they placed oxygen and an automated external defibrillator (AED) on the passenger.
“As that was being placed on…we realized that she had a heartbeat…it was very, very shallow and very, very low,” she said.
As the plane approached Pearson Airport, the captain declared a medical emergency landing in order to push to the front of the line of aircraft arriving at the airport.
Sunwing confirmed that a passenger was in medical distress on the flight from Cancun to Toronto on Tuesday.
