Person of Interest: Nurse Mary Cunningham

Off-duty nurse, Mary Cunningham, of Niantic, Connecticut has been hailed as a hero for her help when passengers aboard the SkyWest Airlines flight, on which she was traveling on her way home from a vacation, suddenly started feeling ill.

On April 22nd, Ms. Cunningham boarded the SkyWest flight from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to Windsor Locks, CT. About midway through the flight, the emergency room nurse heard an announcement over the flight’s loudspeaker asking if any medical personnel were on board. Ms. Cunningham, the only one to answer the call for help, was directed to a female passenger who had become very lethargic and had a gray pallor about her.

Ms. Cunningham requested that she be administered oxygen and the flight crew complied. The woman's color soon returned and she began feeling better. Shortly after that, however, another female passenger, who was seated behind the woman, fell unconscious.

Ms. Cunningham quickly realized that something was wrong as she too began to feel ill. "From a medical perspective, I could tell it was an oxygenation issue. While I was helping the second woman, I myself became very short of breath and felt really faint. I thought I was going to pass out," Cunningham said.

Worried for the safety of everyone on board, she requested that the pilot make an emergency landing. The pilot agreed and made a very rapid descent into Buffalo, NY. Upon landing, EMTs arrived to treat several ill passengers, three of whom had passed out. We are happy to report that everyone on board is okay, though the cause of the oxygen deficiency is still being investigated.

Many people are praising Ms. Cunningham for her quick thinking, which helped to avoid what could have been a disaster. She, however, does not feel that she is a hero. She credits instead the pilots and flight crew for their calmness and professionalism. “The flight attendants did a great job keeping us informed. I can’t speak enough of them,” she said. “People have the impression there was panic or chaos, but it was pretty well controlled.”

Still, Ms. Cunningham, who works at Yale-New Haven Hospital, deserves a round of applause for her actions. She remains modest, however. "We're trained to handle emergency situations like this… it's just a different setting," she said.

You can read more about this story here and here.