A DOCTOR with Shenzhen University General Hospital rescued a passenger suffering from hypotension on a flight from Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, to Shenzhen last month. His story had not been told until the patient called the hospital to thank the doctor over the weekend, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

“If it was not for Doctor Wang Xin, I might have been gone already,” said the patient, identified as Liu, who is in his 50s, on the phone.

According to the report, Wang caught a night flight from Harbin to Shenzhen after attending an academic conference on ear, nose and throat (ENT) medicine there. He was awoken by an in-flight announcement about two hours after the plane had taken off.

The flight attendants were looking for a doctor to help Liu, who had suddenly passed out. Wang came forward to help.

Two Russian doctors also stepped up to help but they could not communicate with Liu’s family. Wang found Liu was unconscious with extremely low blood pressure.

Wang told the flight attendants to make room for Liu in the last row of seats and lay him down. Wang learned from Liu’s family that Liu suffered from high blood pressure and had taken an extra pill to control his blood pressure because the flight was longer than four hours.

Wang thought it was the extra pill that had drastically lowered Liu’s blood pressure, so he used the oxygen equipment on the flight to help Liu breathe and fed him a glass of water with sugar and salt. Liu’s blood pressure rose to a normal level in only 10 minutes and his condition started to improve.

Wang accompanied Liu for the rest of the flight and reminded him not to fall asleep. Liu’s condition remained stable until the airplane landed safely in Shenzhen, and Wang left after testing the patient’s blood pressure again to make sure Liu was safe to leave the airport.

(Zhang Qian)