I’m jumpseating (occupying an available flight attendant seat and not a passenger seat) to my little’s (little sister in my sorority) wedding in Portland. I started out in New York City but didn’t want to wake up at the crack of dawn to catch the direct flight so I opt to sleep in a little bit and take a pit stop in Minneapolis on my way to Portland.

During the boarding process there is a lady who is pre-boarding the flight. You can tell she is having a difficult time walking down the aisle. I turn to one of the working flight attendants and say, “I would check your emergency equipment if I were you. I have a feeling something might go down on this flight.”

We take-off, climb to cruising altitude, and the working crew does their thing. I do my usual jumpseater thing, aka stay out of the way of the working crew. About mid-flight one of the working flight attendants sticks her head into the back galley where I’m hiding and asks for me to grab an oxygen bottle and some water. I jump into action as if I were part of the working crew. I grab the emergency equipment she asked for while another flight attendant makes a PA for medical personnel to identify themselves. Another flight attendant grabs more of the medical equipment and I jump on the interphone to inform the pilots of the medical situation. We are trained for these situations and it seems like the crew is on auto-pilot while handling the situation. I happen to be a tiny person so there I am climbing over and around passengers and seats to assist the crew in any way I can.

Unfortunately after about an hour of the medical personnel working on the passenger, they come to the conclusion that there is nothing else that can be done. They’ve been taking turns providing compressions and the AED continues to state no shock advised. By this time the decision to divert to an alternative location has been made. We head to our new diverted location of Boise as landing in Portland is no longer an option with this medical situation. Upon landing in Boise, we deplane the cabin so the paramedics can do their job of removing our departed passenger.

After things are done, we reboard the plane and are back on our way to our destination.  Needless to say, I was a mess upon arriving to the wedding. Until this day sometimes I get a few flashbacks of that day when I’m on the same aircraft. I can remember how her skin had a blue color to it when the situation started and was grey upon landing in Boise. I can remember her body as they did compressions. I hope the rest of my flight career I will not have to go through this again.