Nurse helps fellow plane passenger during heart attack on Boston-bound plane

WORCESTER, Mass. — A local nurse on vacation was in the right place at the right time when a man went into cardiac arrest.

She was on a plane heading home to Boston from Chicago and jumped in to help.

Jane Palermo said it all happened so fast. The man had collapsed and stopped breathing when she began life-saving treatment.

“I noticed a woman shaking her husband and I didn't think anything too much at that point but then she did it again and his head went down,” Palermo said.

Palermo has been a nurse at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester for more than 13 years.

She climbed her way to help the man in his 60's who wasn't breathing and didn't have a pulse.

He was having a heart attack.

She and first responders on board quickly began performing CPR and asked the flight attendant to get the on board defibrillator.

“I knew it was serious at that point because he was not responding, there was nothing. As soon as they checked his pulse we knew we had to go into action,” she said.

While they continued CPR the United pilot asked to have the plane diverted to the closest airport but just as they were landing in Cleveland the man had started breathing again.

Palermo believes the man was coming home to Boston and would love to know how he is doing, but the airline said they cannot release that information.

Still she said she’s glad she could help, especially after losing her husband to a heart attack 7 years ago.

“It gave me a good feeling that I could help someone when I couldn't help when my husband passed so it gave me a really good feeling,” she said.

Palermo told FOX25 that this was the second medical emergency she helped out with on her trip. On the way to her vacation, she stepped in when someone had an allergic reaction on the plane.

Cox Media Group