She is an adult family practice RNP and thus had not done hospital work involving seriously ill patients in 25+ years. I would speculate that BOTH of them were way outside of their field. This was c. 1999 and as far as I know the plane was not served by Medair or similar service where they could be walked through what to do by a cardiologist, internist, or ER MD. However, they were the only people on board with even a small amount of knowledge, and they did step forward to help.

When I had my LH incident, I too was out of my field but there was no contact with the outside world with the technology then extant (1995) and thus I could not be patched through to an obstetrician to help me. Yes, I can manage hypotension due to blood loss, but normally I am not allowed to care for seriously ill pregnant women beyond the first trimester. I'm not sure what the person who added terbutaline to the LH medical kit was thinking (i.e. was it for asthma? for premature labor?) but I was certainly glad it was on board. I didn't know the OB dose so I just gave the asthma dose and it worked. Later learned that the asthma and OB doses (when not given as a Pitocin drip) are roughly the same.

My OB colleagues' only suggestion was that I could have give her a slug of alcohol for its tocolytic effect. However, I was worried maybe they were going to do a D&C, in which case they would want her to have an empty stomach, so I deferred on the alcohol. We had no sterile gloves on board but I used FA gloves and dipped them in an Absolut vodka alcohol bath. They agreed with the Foley catheter as well as placing her perpendicular to the axis of motion of the plane. LH had a crew break room behind the last Economy lavatories with two narrow bunks. The top bunk was hinged to the wall and could be lowered to form a "sofa" for use by ill patients (the FAs said it was designed to be an alternate sick room). The aisle in front of the sofa was only a foot wide, and the sofa was so low that I had to insert catheter and IVs on my knees, as well as take vitals on my knees. The paramedics have to take care of people on the ground....we in hospitals are spoiled, we get to take care of people already on gurney stretchers.