Imagethief is headed to Hawaii this week to speak on a panel called “NewsMorphosis 2.0“, about how technology is affecting the news business. There are three panels, each one of which has two local media luminaries and a “thought leader”. I have the honor of being the “thought leader” on the first panel. I’m not sure I rate the status, but I’m charmed nonetheless, find the topic fascinating, and who says no to a free trip to Hawaii?
The panel isn’t until Thursday, and I’d originally wanted to arrive on Wednesday morning, which would give me a day to loaf around in Honolulu prior to the event. However, to an international date line snafu, I was booked by the organizers to fly today, which would get me in on Tuesday morning, Hawaii time. OK, two free days in Hawaii. What’s not to like?
The plans have however been thrown into some doubt due to a tragic event on my plane today. I was on ANA’s afternoon flight to Osaka, from where I was supposed to connect to a Delta flight to Japan. We were sitting on the taxiway at the runway threshold, next in line for takeoff, when an elderly gentleman three rows in front of me collapsed, apparently of a heart attack. The plane was only about a third full, and I’d noticed his wife mopping his brow as I boarded, so I guess he was already feeling poorly.
ANA’s flight crew was very professional (as I assume most flight crews would be), and had oxygen up and running quickly, but things deteriorated fast and they were giving him CPR within minutes. We were back at the gate about ten minutes after the episode began and a ground-based medical team came on board. I expected that they would move the man off the plane and onto an ambulance very quickly, but instead they continued to work on him on the plane, setting up two IV bags and continuing compressions for an hour. I’m not a doctor, but I have certified in CPR several times and I’m pretty sure the prognosis drops off rapidly after the first few minutes.
I presume there was some reason why they didn’t or couldn’t move him, but it was pretty clear from my vantage point that the cheap seats of a 737, even a pristine ANA 737, are not the best place for an intensive medical intervention. After an hour or so they gave up, and the two women traveling with him, a wife a daughter I presume from their ages, collapsed in tears. Even the flight attendants cracked a bit, although they regained their composure pretty quickly.
Finally, after three hours, they took us off the plane and back into the terminal, but not before the cops had been on board and photographed the body and various paperwork had been completed. The family and the body stayed on the plane. I felt like a heel for pointing out to the flight attendants that I had thoroughly blown my connection and needed to make some arrangements. A guy has just died in front of you and his bereaved family is five feet away, and you’re worried about your connection to Hawaii, you jerk? But they were professional and sympathetic or not, I still have to figure out what I’m going to do.
ANA has said something about trying to shift my flights to tomorrow, but we’re all still sitting here in the terminal. At least I have the luxury of that being the worst of my problems for the moment.
Random impressions from the event: A flight attendant catching her immaculately bunned hair in several strips of packing tape hung from an overhead bin. The ridiculous and girly “year of the tiger” phone charm hanging from the phone of the hardass, middle-aged (female) ANA Beijing ground agent. One of the flight attendants praying over the body of the victim. The fact that the two plainclothes cops who came on the photograph the body wore matching leather jackets. The complete decorousness of everyone on the plane at all times.
