Sent by God

Monday the 27^th of May I left The Netherlands to go on a new adventure. I never would have thought that adventure would start so soon. I’ll explain later.

My Mom, Dad and Brother accompanied me to the airport to see me off. It was nice to have them around just before I left. My brother, Jeroen, was joking that maybe the tv-show ‘Hello/Goodbye’ would come by and wanting to interview us for their show. Right as I was hugging them and said goodbye before I went through customs two girls approached us. “Hello, we are from the tv show Hello/Goodbye and where wondering if you would like to appear in front of our camera”.

Of course we all started laughing. What a weird coincidence. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time since I had to be at the gate half an hour later. Too bad actually, it would have been fun to have my tv debut right before I left.

 Alright let’s get to the ‘sent by god’ part. There are a lot of variables that come into play here. It started when I checked my luggage and got my boarding pass. For some reason (I like to believe it was my irresistible smile) the girl upgraded me to economy plus, which meant more leg room. It also meant I was seated somewhere that wasn’t my original place to sit.

When I got on the plane, I saw this small lady standing near my seat. I already thought ‘she is going to ask if I want to trade places’. And she did. She wanted to sit next to her husband, who had an aisle seat a few rows to the front. I didn’t mind and we traded places. The lady belonged to quite a big group of Philippinos who came back from a pilgrimage in Europe. I talked with a few more of them during the flight.

When we were in between Iceland and Greenland, also know as the middle of nowhere, it happened. A small Latino lady started freaking out in the aisle. “oh lord Jesus, oh dear Jesus. Oh the blood of Christ, dear Lord help him”, she was shouting. I looked back and two seats behind me a gentleman was having a seizure of some kind. Shaking uncontrollably, eyes rolled away in his eye sockets. His about 8 year son and about 3 year old daughter next to him (the Latino lady was their nanny).

I had the feeling the staff had no idea what to do, so I got up to help. There was an American lady and a Dutch police officer that got up to help as well. The gentleman, Brent, stopped breathing. We got him out of his chair and on the floor. We rolled him on his back and I instructed the lady to do chin lift to open his airways. That seems to be enough to get him breathing again. We put him in the recovery position, but he was still shaking, so it took some effort to make sure he stayed in that position. Luckily he started to come back to his senses. Still very confused he started to push away the people around him. His wife, who had to work and was seated in business class, was here now too. After he calmed down a bit we moved him to business class where he could lay down. He was still pretty confused, but his wife said this happened before. He apparently forgot to take his medication.

It was good for him to be moved out of the economy class, not just so he could lay down, but also to be free of all those prying eyes of other passengers. I went back to check on the little boy, who was really calm and a real trooper during the whole ordeal. That pleasantly surprised me. The nanny had calmed down and looked after the little girl.

Stewardesses came by to thank me for my help. “Write down your name, United Airlines will thank you for your help”, one of them said. The nanny and wife were also very grateful. I was just happy the guy lived and everyone was ok.

They kept asking me if I was a doctor or something. It was a surprise to them I was just a scuba instructor with some EFR (EHBO) skills.

I dind’t have to pay for anything the rest of the flight. They gave me free whisky and extra peanuts. Even random passengers came over to tell me I did such a good job. Even though I was just glad to be of any assistance I can’t deny my ego didn’t suffer ;-).

I really am glad that I still have the ability to stay cool in a stressful situation and am able to help people in need. So if you feel inspired, go take a EFR (ehbo) class. The things you can do with those skills are most valuable.

And now you might think, what has God to do with this all. Well, according to me absolutely nothing. Since I believe God is as valid as the Easter bunny. It is people who help people, but the entire Philippino pilgrimage group begged to differ. It was God’s will I got upgraded to economy plus, it was God’s will I changed seats so I sat closer to that guy. I found that really amusing. But for the pilgrims their pilgrimage continued even on the plane ride home.

If my new adventure starts out like this I’m in for a hell of ride!

At least that’s what I thought then. Cause waiting in the Chicago airport (it is so big it has an indoor train to take you different departure halls) for 4 hours followed by 4,5 hour flight was really incredibly boring.

By the time I arrived I Portland, Oregon I had been travelling for almost 18 hours. My good friends Jeff and Nikki Barker were waiting for me with their 3 month old daughter Zoey to pick me up. It was good to see them again after I left curacao over a year ago. We had some food and drinks at a local bar before they showed their home and the huge couch I would call bed for the coming 9 days.

More stories will follow soon. It is 27c/80f here. So time to go outside and have another adventure.