Bonus Chapter—Mayhem, a Miracle and Two Shar Peis
- Stephen Forte
- Apr 18, 2023
- 6 min read
“By all means, listen to other people’s advice, but when in doubt go with your gut instinct.” Steve Pavlina
My good friend Bob Mayes, flight engineer Fred Jackson, and I were cruising somewhere over Nebraska. The weather was great, we were talking about Bob’s Shar Peis, and it looked like another uneventful trip. Until Anita, the lead flight attendant knocked on the cockpit door.
Now, you never know what’s coming your way when you hear the tentative rapping that signals a flight attendant waiting expectantly for you on the other side. That said, my gut told me that our lively dog talk would be put in a holding pattern.
“We have a guy here on the upper deck who isn’t feeling too good,” said Anita. “Nothing serious, just want to keep you in the loop.” The upper deck was the passenger area behind the cockpit, in the “hump” of the B747-100 we were flying from Chicago to San Francisco.
“Are you sure he’s okay?” I said. “We could easily drop into Denver.”
“No, he seems to be fine. I’ll let you know if he gets worse,” Anita said.
We continued our discussion, with Bob expressing some concern that one of his dogs might have ectropion, a congenital disease commonly seen in the Shar Pei breed, caused by an excess of skin around the eyes.
Suddenly, we heard a loud bang against the cockpit door. This was well before 9/11, but both Bob and I yelled at Fred, “Don’t open the door!”
Fred gave a look back that said, “Do you think I’m an idiot!”
He cautiously peered through the peephole. To his dismay, he saw a young man on the floor, surrounded by a flight attendant and two other people. Apparently, the passenger had passed out and fallen hard against the cockpit door.
Anita called back.
“Well,” she said over the interphone, “He just keeled over.”
“Are there any doctors on board?” I asked, knowing she had probably already thought of that.
“Yes, we have two working on him with the first aid kit.”
“Okay, let me know what they say.”
A few minutes later Anita called back. “Here, talk to the doctor,” and she passed the phone on to him.
“Hi captain, this is Dr. Madison.”
“Hello, doc, how is the guy doing?”
“Blood pressure is low, pulse is weak, and he’s pretty pale. You need to get him to a hospital.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes, you need to land as soon as possible.”
Before we made a very expensive and inconvenient decision, I had to ask, “What kind of doctor are you? You aren’t a vet, are you?”
“No, I’m an internist.”
That was that. Fred gathered the information on our passenger-turned-patient for the report we’d have to file. Bob and I consulted with dispatch, and we all agreed to divert to Salt Lake City, just 100 miles off our nose. It wasn’t a regular airport for the B747, but it had long runways, good facilities, and excellent emergency medical care.
We made a quick descent, landing at Salt Lake. The plan was to get the guy off the plane and into an ambulance, refuel and head for San Francisco. We would spend 30 to 40 minutes on the ground, tops.
Or so we thought.
I got a nagging feeling as I turned the big jet toward the gate. I stopped.
“Hey Fred, before we pull into the gate, verify that they have a tow bar that can push us out. I don’t think they see a lot of 747s here.”
Fred called the station on the radio. “Yup, they said no problem. Cleared into the gate.”
Ignoring the little voice that had made me question the tow bar in the first place; we turned, parked, and shut down the engines. The door opened, and the paramedics immediately came on board. They stabilized our patient and carefully took him down the spiral staircase to the main deck, put him on a stretcher in full view of about 100 of our 350 passengers and took him away.
We told everyone to stay on board. This would be like a pit stop at the Indy 500.
I ran down stairs to get a flight plan, fuel sheet, weather and the other required paperwork. Fred went outside and performed a quick walk around, and Bob stayed on board, chatting up the passengers and watching the cockpit.
I pulled the door to operations open and gave a cheery hello.
Everyone in the room was staring at their feet.
“What’s the problem? I thought this was a gas and go?”
The station manager looked at me and said, “I’m sorry captain, but the tow bar we have is for an L-1011. Delta loaned it to us, but it won’t work on a 747. The good news is that we have a flight coming here from San Francisco that’s about to depart, and they are loading a tow bar on that plane. It should arrive in two hours.”
I started to ask why they didn’t know this before we turned into the gate, but instead just said, “Okay, well, I guess there’s not much else we can do.”
I signed the paperwork and walked out onto the ramp. Fred and a mechanic were standing by the main landing gear, flashlights trained on the tires, studying them like two pigs staring at a wristwatch.
“What’s up?” I asked. Then I saw it.
Two of the main gear tire treads had separated from the core tire. Yes, airlines use retreaded tires, and usually, it isn’t a problem. Today we had double trouble.
“I don’t suppose we have two spare B747 tires at this airport?” I asked the mechanic, knowing the answer.
He just looked at me and shook his head.
Saying nothing, I had a brilliant thought and hustled back into the operations office.
“Hey,” I said to the station manager, a little out of breath. “Can we also put two tires on that flight from San Francisco?”
He tapped on his computer. “Too late, it’s already airborne.”
He made a few calls, and discovered that there were two tires in Denver.
“When does that flight arrive?” I asked.
“Three hours.”
Great.
I walked back to the gate, up the jet bridge steps and made a left into the terminal to tell the gate agent what was going on. We had to let the passengers off the airplane.
“Oh, wow, you know this would sound a lot better if you made the announcement. You being the captain and all,” he said.
All right. I marched back down the jet bridge, picked up the PA and made an announcement.
“Folks, this is the captain. As you know, we had to divert here because one of our passengers became very ill enroute. He’s been transported to the local hospital, and we hope he will be just fine.”
I decided not to mention the tow bar, and in my best bedside manner, played down the significance of the problem. Thanks, dad.
“Unfortunately, we have what I would categorize as—well, two flat tires. And since there are no spare 747 tires at this airport, we are going to have to wait for them to arrive from Denver.”
There was a synchronized groan from all 350 passengers, who were now our hostages.
“Feel free to deplane, but keep your boarding passes with you for re-boarding.” I added, “There is a bar open in the terminal” which I thought would mollify at least some of our customers.
Almost everyone elected to deplane. The mood was acceptable. Bob and I walked the aisle of the plane, answering questions and joking with the few passengers who remained. What else could they do? There was only one other flight to San Francisco, almost everyone’s destination, and it would never accommodate all these passengers.
The time passed quickly, and soon the station manager slid up next to me.
“Can I talk to you privately?”
“Sure,” I said, and we walked to a deserted area of the terminal.
“Remember the guy who was carted off to the hospital?”
“Uh, yea,” I replied.
“Well, it turns out he went to the hospital, they pumped him full of IV fluids, and he is just fine now. Diagnosis was dehydration. He wants to get back on the airplane.”
Apparently, this guy had a rough night out with his mates and was feeling the effects of it. I’m simplifying, but we diverted a jumbo jet B747 because this guy was hung over.
“If you board this guy, the passengers, who will recognize him, will go crazy. As a matter of fact, if you board him you will have to call the paramedics again because I may kill him!”
“Got it, we’ll send him over to Delta.”
The tow bar arrived, then the tires, and about four hours after this whole thing began, we were off to San Francisco.
I had asked the experts around me for their sage advice throughout the ordeal. My gut was right, but sometimes that’s not enough to overcome bad information. As a result, Lazarus beat us to San Francisco, never learning of the mayhem he had caused. Our passengers remained blissfully unaware of his miraculous recovery, and Bob’s Shar Peis lived to a ripe old age, vision intact.
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