Denton Doctor Saves Passenger After In-Flight Heart Attack
DENTON (CBS 11 NEWS) - Dr. DeCarlo Noble certainly has a noble job. He has been delivering babies as an OB-GYN in Denton for the more than a decade.
But Friday night, Dr. Noble did one of the noblest things a man can do; he saved a life in an unexpected place.
He, his wife and three daughters were on board an American Eagle flight back to DFW Airport from Florida where they had taken a family vacation. Dr. Noble was settling into his seat, getting ready to nap, when he heard a panicked passenger screaming, "Dad, are you alright? Dad!" But when the passenger slumped over, Dr. Noble knew something was seriously wrong.
"That's when I realized this guy is probably having a heart attack," he said.
He jumped into action. With the help of another passenger, Dr. Noble put the sick man onto the walkway of the plane.
"The first thing I did was check his pulse and he had no pulse so I immediately started CPR," he said.
He began performing chest compressions and giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation while another passenger assisted him by keep the patient's jaw forward to open his airway.
By this time, the pilot was turning the plane around.
A flight attendant brought over an Automated External Defibrillator, or AED, which is something every American Airlines and American Eagle plane carries. He shocked the patient once and the stricken man started to breathe again.
"So we stopped and kind of watched him. But then he flat-lined again so I went right back to chest compressions and mouth resuscitation," Dr. Noble said.
The doctor performed a total of 3 shocks to the patient with the AED. Dr. Noble said it took about 8 minutes for the plane to taxi back to the terminal.
"If no one would have performed CPR on this man, he wouldn't have made it," he said.
By the time the plane returned to the terminal, an ambulance was waiting. Flight attendants opened the emergency hatch and Dr. Noble stepped onto the wing. The patient, now breathing on his own, was put on a stretcher and into a waiting ambulance.
"I felt like I could run a mile after that! I mean, my adrenaline was pumped," he said.
The pilot and other passengers thanked him for helping to save the man's life. Meanwhile, his wife and daughter's looked him incredulously.
"My family, when they came out, they were just totally shocked. They've just never seen me do anything like that," he said.
The doctor's glasses fell onto the patient and were taken to the hospital with him. They were later returned
"The officer told me that they had found my glasses. He mentioned that the family was grateful," said Dr. Noble.
Before this, Dr. Noble was simply "dad" to his daughters. Now, he's much more.
"They are teasing me now, walking about the house calling me 'hero,'" he said. "I just thank God I was able to help."
Dr. Noble has a private OB-GYN practice in Denton.
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