LOS ANGELES (AP) — An emergency medical technician from Southern California has said he is showing COVID-19 symptoms after performing CPR on a man who later died after going into cardiac arrest during a United Airlines flight from Orlando, Florida, to Los Angeles.
U.S. Navy veteran Tony Aldapa said his training kicked in on Dec. 14 to help the passenger, and that he knew the risks when he performed CPR on the man, whose wife said he had virus-like symptoms, KNBC-TV reported.
Aldapa said he had plans to get the COVID-19 vaccine on Friday because he is a licensed EMT and an emergency room health care worker. Instead, he is awaiting results from a COVID-19 test.
“Ten times out of ten, I would still get up and help,” said Aldapa, who has had a headache, cough and body aches since the Monday flight. “I was just thinking there’s a guy that needs CPR.”
Aldapa, along with another EMT and ICU nurse, took turns doing CPR on the man, who has not been identified. The group did not do mouth-to-mouth but had rotated a resuscitator and oxygen mask to help the man breathe while doing chest compressions for 45 minutes.
The man’s wife was overheard saying he felt sick before the flight and had lost his sense of taste and smell.
“She told me he had been short of breath and on the way back home he was going to get tested for COVID,” Aldapa said. The man died at a hospital after an emergency landing. The flight continued to Los Angeles.
USA Today reported that the man died of acute respiratory failure and COVID-19, according to a coroner's report.
United Airlines said all passengers are required to fill out a ready-to-fly questionnaire to acknowledge they don’t have COVID-19 or related symptoms. Several passengers said the man Aldapa helped showed symptoms, but it remained unclear if he had the coronavirus.
The airline reached out to Aldapa to thank him and said it sent the flight manifest to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Aldapa said the CDC had not contacted him.
For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some — especially older adults and people with existing health problems — it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.
