When Krishna Anand, EnMed Class of 2025, found himself on a flight back to Houston from Cape Town, South Africa, where he gave a presentation at a medical conference on his orthopedic research with Houston Methodist Hospital, his journey took an unexpected turn.
The plane encountered a rough storm, and Krishna experienced some of the worst turbulence he had ever seen. Through his headphones, he heard high-pitched screaming piercing through the cabin. At first, Krishna thought it might be a crying baby, but as the screams grew louder, he heard threats and curses. A voice over the intercom asked whether a doctor was on the flight.
“I nervously glanced around and hoped someone would stand up, but no one did,” said the Houston native, who earned his bachelor’s degrees in chemical engineering and chemistry from The University of Texas at Austin. Though conflicted and torn between the fear of an ongoing emergency and potentially getting in the way, Krishna ultimately couldn’t bear the thought of doing nothing. He made his way up to the front of the airplane.
“I encountered chaos,” he explained. “A woman was screaming delusional threats about crashing the plane and was lashing out at the flight attendants”, he said. The passenger appeared to be suffering a psychiatric episode three hours into the flight, her screams piercing throughout the Airbus A350-900 cabin.
Krishna told a flight attendant that he was a medical student, not a doctor, with an in-patient psychiatric rotation under his belt. “To my surprise, he said, ’If you can help us, he said, then you’re in charge.’”
As the crew and a few other passengers restrained the passenger, Krishna tried to gather information about her. “It was impossible to obtain a medical history,” he said. “I was concerned about her medications, medical history and any drug use – and I wasn’t able to get any information from her.”
Krishna asked to see the medical kits they had on board and asked a flight attendant to search the woman’s bags for medications. A few minutes later they found a bottle for Ativan in the woman’s bag, a drug used to control symptoms of anxiety and panic attacks.
“I explained to the flight attendant and suggested it might be our best option, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable administering it,” Krishna said. “If it were up to me, I would ask her to take it willingly.”
He and several crew members tried that and, given her agitated state, it was clear she was unwilling to take the medication.
“With everyone yelling and giving her attention, I felt she would not calm down. Besides one other flight attendant, I requested that everyone return to their seats so I could make another effort to reach her,” he said.
He knelt down, maintained eye contact, spoke calmly and made small talk to break the ice. “Intermittently, I’d tell her I’m there to help her,” he said. “Slowly, her outbursts became less frequent.”
The flight attendant implored the woman to take her medication. She complied, but then spit the pill out.
“We were back to square one,” Krishna stated.
With no alternative, Krishna stayed with the woman seated in the aisle next to her for several hours, offering empathy and trying to counter her troubled expressions. Eventually, the woman fell asleep for the last three hours of the flight.
Upon landing, the grateful Delta crew and other passengers expressed thanks to Krishna for his willingness to help.
He credits his hands-on experience and clinical rotations and discussing moral and ethical dilemmas in EnMed’s Practice of Medicine courses for preparing him to act.
“It was a difficult experience,” he said. “I just hope the woman is now feeling better.”
