By Femi Ogunyemi

I have this tendency to stumble on medical emergencies outside the hospital setting. In 1996, I compiled many such incidents in an article titled ” Fight or Flight – The Good Samaritan” in a UK medical journal.

Talking about “flight”,  an incident occurred recently in the arrival hall of our Murtala Mohammed Airport.

As we disembarked we were slapped in the face by a tremendous thick humid heat. Midway down the long corridor, I observed an middle-aged lady sweating as we headed towards the non working escalator into the Immigration Hall.

I helped her down the steps with her bag.

With that sense of duty typical of doctors, I observed her in the Baggage Hall, where to our dismay, the conveyor belt had failed. Bags were being delivered by hand.

Pandemonium soon ensued. Megaphones blared out passenger names whilst the same passengers yelled asking whose name was called.

In the cacophony of chaos I’d lost sight of my lady passenger.

A crowd had gathered beside the second ( also non functioning ) conveyor belt. “What’s going over there?” I asked an orderly.

“A woman has fainted, sir”.

Getting  through the crowd without a white coat or stethoscope was impossible.

Calls of “Let me through” “Im a doctor” fell on deaf ears.

Instead I heard : ” She’s sick” “Maybe its AIDS” and “Where’s the airport clinic?”

Someone said “The woman has collapsed.”

Someone added “The whole  airport has collapsed. I quickly improvised.

“Yea Auntie..” I yelled, so loud, the entire Hall froze for a moment. ” Help! Let me see my Auntie, O!!”

It was like Moses parting the Red Sea.

I found her flat on her back.

“Are you all right?” I asked. She did not respond but was breathing.

Her wrist pulse was weak and faint.

“Please give me a hand.” I requested help to place her on her side and I opened out her airway.

We then lifted her legs up on a chair to increase venous return of blood to her heart.

After a few minutes of fanning with a newspaper, she began to mumble some words.

In this authoritative role I was able to disperse the onlookers and assure them the woman will be fine.

The rest, as the cliche goes, is history.

I shall now explain the probable cause of this woman’s close call to the chequered flag of life’s Formula One race and why I have dedicated today’s article to this incident.

Her problems began as she stepped out of the cold cabin air into the hot humidity of the airport corridors. Without air conditioning, the temperature change probably caused her blood vessels to vasodilate to get rid of the excess body heat.

Blood vessels tend to tighten up (vasoconstrict) in cold temperatures to preserve our body heat. That is how frostbite develops.

It was not the hot air per se, but the TRANSITION from cold to hot air, after being immobile for many hours, that probably precipitated her collapse.

With non functioning escalator and conveyor belts and the presence of underlying illness and medications (she was on anti hypertensives), climate control in the airport is NOT a luxury, but an absolute necessity.

Despite the pleasantries of most immigration, customs, baggage handlers and airport staff, returning home through Murtala Mohammed Airport remains stressful sometimes, and may carry some not insignificant health challenges.

Why this article and why now?

On Friday October 25th 2013, I read this on three different channels on TV:

“A former MD of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Agency,………, has stated that the Agency spent N643 million on SECURITY and UTILITY VEHICLES in 2013”

I started to wonder how much it costs to keep an escalator working, to get a belt to rotate continuously around a ball and cogwheels, and to have a box of ice blow cold air out of a few holes.

Its not rocket science.But what do I know?I am just a humble doctor.

•Dr. Femi Ogunyemi, FRCA, FWACS, is a member of the British Pain Society, American Pain Society, the North American Neuromodulation Society and the Aerospace Medical Association. He is a Diplomate of the American Academy of Pain Management and a Fellow in Pain Medicine from Emory University.