Fly High

Helplessly breathing heavy, chest pumping faster than his fearful heart, lays a 

man who appears to be in his late sixties, in the aisle of our United Airlines airplane, less than 15 feet away from the cold empty plane seat beside mine. Panic streams down my body like a river on a windy day. I freeze. No, you're an EMT, you can’t leave this man in the aisle of a plane forty-three thousand feet in the sky. 

A crowd begins to form in the thin aisles of our airplane, surrounding the fallen 

man. I grab my thick navy blue 20 pound emergency kit from the overhead compartment, just above my seat row. I don’t recall what I screamed out loud in the moment, I just remember the relief on every alarmed passenger's face as they saw me, an EMT aboard ready to spring into action. 

As I got to the old man through the quickly growing crowd mixed of startled  flight attendants and concerned passengers, it was already too late. His body colder than winter and face discolored. I couldn’t react. I mean how could I? His screaming sobbing wife kneeled beside him holding his now blue veiny colored hands wailing in agony. As my eyes peered down I noticed blood. Lots of it. Pools of it. The seemingly worried crowd who once felt peace knowing my presents was there when needed, now turned frightened and urgently retreated to the back of the plane all at once. Their screams, none of any normalcy rang in my ears. What is happening? Why are they all scared? As I slowly glanced down into my hands I noticed I was holding a 12 inch silver blade knife with nothing but blood surrounding its curves and edges.