It turns out that in-flight medical emergencies don't occur as often as many people would think. According to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, on average only one in every 604 commercial air flights have someone who requires medical attention.
That means that with commercial airlines flying 2.75 billion passengers per year, 44,000 of these passengers require medical attention while in the air.
One in four patients went to the emergency room after landing and eight percent were admitted to the hospital. Surprisingly, only seven percent of these cases forced the plane to be diverted away from its destination.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the study comes for people with medical training as only one third of these cases ever had to be handled by flight attendants. Forty-eight percent of the time, doctors made themselves available to help those in need on a flight. Twenty-eight percent of the time it was nurses or other trained medical personnel who stepped up.
"We believe that airline passengers who are health care professionals should be aware of their potential role as volunteer responders to in-flight medical emergencies," the author of the study in wrote.
In addition, Z6Mag reports that an emergency medical kit and a defibrillator are required to be aboard every flight by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. Many airlines communicate directly with medical practitioners on the ground in the event of an in-flight medical emergency that those on board aren't equipped to handle.
The study looked at the international and domestic flights of five airlines between January 2008 and October of 2010. The names of the airlines were not published so that the journal could make sure that it protected the confidentiality of the patients in these in-flight medical situations.
