Chris Fogg, a critical care nurse and a resident of Idaho in US had a miraculous escape while traveling by an air ambulance.
He was flying with a patient and the pilot last Wednesday from Twin Falls, Idaho, to Seattle when a window was blown off. At that time they were flying at a height of 20,000 ft.Rapid decompression occurred when Fogg was unbuckled from his seat and reaching for a water bottle. Fogg's head and right arm were pulled outside the window, and he suffered cuts to his head. Some equipment, charts, his eye glasses and packages went flying out of the cabin.
Fogg, 41, is 6 feet tall and weighs 220 pounds. He said his size may have helped him avoid being sucked out of the twin-engine turboprop plane.
"My left hand was on the ceiling and was holding me in, and my knees were up against the wall," Fogg told The Seattle Times in a story published Monday. He said he pushed as hard as he could and got enough air between his chest and the window to break the suction and pull himself back inside the aircraft.
"I have a vivid picture of looking at the tail of the plane and seeing my headset dangling out of the plane," Fogg said.
He fell back into his seat, and grabbed one of the patient's pillows to stop the blood pouring from his head. He said the pilot knew the cabin had decompressed but was not aware of the broken window, so he put the airplane into a dive to a safe altitude of 10,000 feet.
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Fogg said the patient, who saw the whole thing, was not in danger because he was on oxygen. The man was a Vietnam veteran and told Fogg he had flashbacks of being shot out of the air.
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Fogg has worked for the Ada-Boi air ambulance service for 24 years, which his father owns. The next day he was back at work.
"It was pretty scary, I'll tell you that," Fogg said.
Source-Medindia
SRM/M
