It’s drama worthy of a movie plot, except the doctor from Delray Beach is real and the scene of an unresponsive 9-year-old unfolds in the interior of a passenger jet flying at 30,000 feet.
On a Mexico vacation over the Easter holiday, Dr. Joseph Ricotta, a vascular surgeon and endovascular therapy specialist at Tenet Florida Cardiovascular Care and regional medical director for Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy, saved a girl who went unresponsive and had a seizure on a Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta to Cabo.
Ricotta responded immediately when the pilot came on the loudspeaker and asked: “Is there a doctor on board?”
“I immediately jumped out of my seat and ran to the little girl who was laying in the middle of the aisle of the plane. It was a little chaotic and I was just trying to see how I could help,” he said.
He found the girl lying in the aisle unresponsive.
“I did the basics of CPR and assessed her airway breathing and circulation. She was unconscious and unresponsive with an extremely faint pulse. There was no blood pressure cuff available to fit the arm of a 9-year-old and so we had to go by feeling and instinct in terms of assessing her vital signs,” he said in an email.
Then Ricotta and the pilot debated whether the child’s medical situation warranted having to land the plane and get her to a hospital.
Ricotta said it was wholly his decision.
“Fortunately, we were able to resuscitate the child, she woke up and was disoriented,” he said. “Her pulse became stronger, her breathing became less labored and she continued to improve.
“I got on the headset with the pilot and air traffic control on the ground and continually assessed the patient for the next 45 minutes or so.”
He said she continued to improve and he deemed it safe to carry on with the flight and avoid an emergency landing.
“The decision was made collectively, however, because I was there evaluating the patient they deferred to my judgment. It was like taking care of any other patient, making sure that we put the patient first and do what’s best for her,” Ricotta said. “Thankfully, she ended up doing well and made a full recovery,”
He experienced a situation in 2015 as the first responder to a man who fell from the upper deck at a Atlanta Braves – New York Yankees game in New York giving him CPR for 10 minutes until paramedics arrived at the scene, according to newspaper accounts. The victim in that incident died.
