Off-duty nurse commended for saving heart attack victim on flight (From This is The West Country)

Off-duty nurse commended for saving heart attack victim on flight

10:39am Wednesday 20th March 2013 in News By Laura Barton

A NURSE from Norton who saved the life of another passenger on board a Ryanair flight will receive a commendation for her valiant efforts next month.

Penny Cotton, an emergency nurse practitioner for Somerset Primary Care Trust, was just half an hour into her return flight home from Lanzarote in October last year, when air stewards asked her to help a woman who had suffered a heart attack.

Penny said: “When I got to her she wasn’t breathing, she was just slumped in her chair.

“When you see someone as sick at this lady, a kind of switch comes on you forget that there is anyone else on the plane at all.

“I knew I just had to get that lady on the floor, I needed to do something or she was going to die.”

The woman drifted in and out of consciousness as Penny and 19-year-old air steward, Luke Rexworthy, tried to resuscitate her in the aisle.

Penny said: “I did a cardiac massage for at least 20 minutes and within that time we got her back a couple of times but she kept stopping breathing.

“I said to the air steward hostess that we needed to land, she needed medical intervention.

“They didn’t have a defibrillator on the plane, all I had was oxygen.”

The crew diverted the plane, and landed in Seville, where paramedics took over.

The Royal Humane Society nominated Penny for a commendation, which she will receive in April.