If you fall ill on a flight, the best you can hope for is that there’s a doctor onboard. Dorothy Fletcher of Liverpool, England, considers herself lucky. When she suffered a heart attack on a transatlantic flight from Manchester, England, to Orlando, Fla., she just happened to be on a plane full of cardiologists on their way to a cardiology conference. When a flight attendant asked if there was a doctor onboard, the 15 cardiologists stood up en masse and rushed to save Fletcher. They fed drips into the 67-year-old’s arms and used an onboard medical kit to control the life-threatening heart attack. The plane was diverted to North Carolina, where Fletcher was rushed to the intensive care unit of Charlotte Medical Center. Fletcher had been traveling with her daughter to attend another daughter’s wedding when she experienced acute chest pains. She spent two days in the hospital, but managed to attend the wedding in Kissimmee, Fla., the next week.
