aroundtheworld76

Good question. I don't know, but I can find out. We are usually met planeside by some sort of supervisory gate agent or even the station manager depending on where we are at. That is who tells us that they've held the passengers on board. Whether that's their decision or that of the crew, I don't know.

As I said, I prefer the space to work, so I usually (depending on the report and my general vibe) ask them to unload the pax. I cannot speak for all of my colleagues, some of them might prefer to go on first. We can even send one person down real quick to eyeball the patient and decide to unload or not. If it's a widebody, we might ask them to unload all the pax via the side away from the patient while we work. I ALWAYS seem to get the heavy passenger who is laid out across the row in deep coach. If all my patients were towards the front of the bus I might feel differently. It can also depend on the availability of a hi-lo truck to take the patient off with, the service, their protocols, etc, etc.... If it's an international flight, CBP folks come with us and may or may not clear the patient on the plane. I went to a conference a few years back and one of the presenters worked for an ARFF department and they responded to all medical calls by meeting a hi-lo truck at the back of the aircraft and staging themselves in the galley. Such luxury..... I've had to put a backboard onto a drink cart to get the patient up the aisle to the jetway and our stretcher. I can't imagine doing that if all the pax were still seated.

For background, this is from a few years as a 911 medic, CCT Ground Nurse and the last few years as a flight nurse taking pts off from and putting them on commercial flights several times a week. Different scenarios (Scheduled transports only ever have the pax held if the patient condition deteriorated in flight, which happens less than 10% of the time) but similar logistics.