Gov. Josh Green provided medical aid to a fellow Delta Air Lines passenger who suffered an apparent seizure as they landed at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport this afternoon while the governor returned after speaking at the United Nations and attending the national governor’s conference.
The 24-year-old male passenger was sitting three rows in front of Green when passengers began screaming and calling for a doctor as the flight was landing around 3:30 p.m., said his communications director, Makana McLellan.
“He was having a seizure and stopped breathing,” McLellan told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “Gov. was there in about 2 seconds. … (The passenger’s) lips were blue and his face was white.”
“Governor had to step in immediately,”McLellan said, and opened the passenger’s air way “to help the gentleman to breathe.”
Green stabilized the passenger and an American Medical Response crew stationed at the airport responded and transferred the patient to a crew from the city’s Emergency Services Department and took him to a hospital in “serious but stable condition,” said EMS director James Ireland.
“We always appreciate it when good Samaritans get involved to provide care prior to our arrival, especially people with training,” Ireland said. “And the airlines do count on medically trained people. This time, it just happened to be our governor. … He’s proven himself over and over … in an emergency. I just kind of smiled when I heard it was him.”
Medical emergencies aboard long trans-Pacific flights occur a couple of times every week in and out of Hawaii and “some are minor, some are more serious,” Ireland said.
Depending on how far they are into a flight, pilots will decide to turn around or continue on “to save the life of a patient,” Ireland said.”This happens probably once a day or at least a couple of days a week. It can be stressful.”
Green, America’s only sitting governor who is also a medical doctor, has rendered critical medical aid three times as governor after being sworn into office in December and once before as lieutenant governor.
On the Fourth of July, Green also applied a bandage to a senior citizen at an event before attending the annual Kailua parade.
In June, Green’s entourage was following a pickup truck on Kauai when a 25-year-old Kauai man sitting in a lawn chair in the bed of the truck was ejected and suffered an apparent concussion after hitting his head on the pavement in Kapaa.
Green conducted a neurological assessment, assessed the man’s respiratory status, and calmed him and his family until paramedics arrived about 10 minutes later, McClellan said at the time. The man appeared to have a concussion and possible rib injuries.
In May, Green and others helped kick out the windshield of a vehicle that went airborne on Waikoloa Road on Hawaii island while Green was en route to a ceremony in Waikoloa. The vehicle flipped several times before it landed upside down in a gulch. The driver sustained scrapes and bruises in the single-vehicle crash.
“His seat belt saved him honestly,” Green told the Star-Advertiser at the time.
Then on Memorial Day, Green left the stage at a Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery event to aid a woman in the audience who suffered an apparent seizure.
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