| Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Part XIII: “The Straphanger Goes Global” Series
This columnist was watching last Monday night’s football game when 24-year-old Damar Hamlin, a safety player of the visiting Buffalo Bills football team, tackled one of the players of the opposing Cincinnati Bengals and brought him down. Then Mr. Hamlin got up, and within approximately two seconds, he collapsed. First aid and CPR were administered immediately. An ambulance was driven to the football field, and paramedics made more CPR efforts and took him to the hospital. Broadcast reports later said that the injured player was hospitalized and was in critical condition.
But this column is not about sports violence. It is about Murphy’s Law. And a need for sports venues, hotels, casinos, cruise ships, passenger aircraft, and public places like shopping malls, schools, and community centers or clinics to have a defibrillator. A defibrillator was reportedly used to prevent Damar Hamlin from dying on the Bengals’ football field in the first quarter of Monday’s game — even before the paramedics arrived with another defibrillator and other cardiac equipment to use.
Defibrillators are medical devices that send an electric pulse or shock to the heart to restore a normal heartbeat. They prevent or correct an arrhythmia, an uneven heartbeat that is too slow or fast. If the heart suddenly stops, defibrillators can also help it beat again. But of course, there is also the need to have trained personnel to operate defibrillators.
Murphy’s Law is an adage that says, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Some formulations extend to “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.”
In June 2015, this journalist boarded a Philippine Airlines (PAL) direct flight to Manila from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Boarding was about 80 percent complete when flight attendants rushed to the rear of the Boeing 777 jetliner (near where this writer was seated). Although airport paramedics rushed to the cabin, it was too late. One flight steward carried a defibrillator. They attended to a fellow Filipino passenger (that was already seated and belted) having a heart attack. He was a grandfather accompanied by two of his grandchildren. The grandfather suffered a fatal heart attack. Later, I learned from a seatmate that the victim was traveling to the Philippines to celebrate his 84th birthday. He overheard at the pre-departure area that the ill-fated (pun not intended) elderly passenger discussed with his grandchildren how their kin planned to fete him on his birthday.
“Murphy’s Law is an adage that says, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Some formulations extend to “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong and at the worst possible time.”
The flight was delayed by almost two hours, as the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office had to send a team to take the remains out of the aircraft. The grandchildren left with the coroner’s team. Presumably, their luggage was also unloaded when the airline personnel and passengers had to wait for the coroner’s team to arrive.
In April 1983, this writer and his business associate boarded a Japan Airlines (JAL) Boeing 747 from Abu Dhabi International Airport. We were flying to Rome, Italy, to meet with our Italian ceramic-industrial prospective partners for a planned modern ceramic factory scheduled to be constructed in Sorsogon Province, Philippines, in 1985. As the jumbo jet started taking off, several passengers shouted that they could see one of the plane’s four engines (on the right wing) in flames. It was good that the Japanese pilots were so ably trained that they turned on the fire extinguisher built-in on the engine pod to put it out and safely abort the flight. The aircraft was still rolling on the runway on its way to gain momentum and the optimal speed and power. It could have been a tragic flight had the 747 aircraft been at least 100 meters up in the air when the fire broke out.
As the jumbo jet slowly turned back from the runway to the terminal — as now accompanied by firetrucks and ambulances — my companion said that he nearly had a heart attack. I told him the flight crew was trained paramedics and even had a defibrillator. Not to worry, this journalist said. And we were lucky because that night, we got exempted by fate from Murphy’s Law.
Today, as discussed earlier in this series, this columnist and his sweetheart of a wife would be on their way to Manila via Taipei, Taiwan, for a six-week work assignment, family reunions, and vacation. But Mr. Murphy intervened again. We needed to have COVID-19 tests at one of the Kaiser Permanente Hospitals, our Medicare provider, last Sunday, New Year’s Day. The results came on Monday, and both tests were positive despite our five vaccinations (including the three booster shots, the latest in November 2022). We were cautious and followed the COVID pandemic protocols to the letter. But somehow, “anything that could go wrong did go wrong, and (our infection) came at the worst possible time,” to quote Mr. Murphy.
But the words of a Filipino politician probably make sense for Filipinos that test positive for COVID-19. The budding politician says, “Not to worry if your medical test turns positive. Why? Because life is all about positive thinking.” Aha!
