Published in The Frederick News-News Post Jun 24, 2006
FREDERICK -- Erin McKelvey spent a year sending e-mails, leaving voice messages and requesting police reports to find the man who saved her life at 35,000 feet April 8, 2005.
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| Courtesy photo Jim Addington, left, with Erin McKelvey. Mr. Addington was honored Monday with an award for using wireless technology in an emergency April 8, 2005. he saved Ms. McKelvey's life by persuading a pilot to land at a closed airport. |
When Jim Addington, 44, of Middletown, persuaded a pilot to make an emergency medical landing at 4 a.m., he had no idea how close Ms. McKelvey, 33, was to death.
Mr. Addington was honored Monday with the Vita Wireless Samaritan Award. The prize is given by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association for people who use wireless technology in an emergency.
Blood clots formed in Ms. McKelvey's legs as she slept on a United Airlines red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Baltimore.
Doctors have long recommended passengers get up and exercise their legs during long flights to avoid such blockages.
As the clots assaulted her lungs, a jolt of agony woke her. A flight attendant called for a doctor or a nurse and when no one answered, Mr. Addington asked for the plane's medical kit.
Mr. Addington, a former EMT at United Fire Company No. 3 in downtown Frederick, consulted with a doctor on the ground through an Airfone mounted to the seat in front of Ms. McKelvey.
She seemed to have a punctured lung.
"It felt like someone had driven a machete into my spine," she said Thursday. "I couldn't get my breath, and every time I tried to breathe it felt like another machete hit me."
Mr. Addington saw her vital signs worsen. He told the pilot to land as soon as possible.
The plane was passing over Kansas City, Mo., but the airport there was closed for the night. The closest full-service airport was in St. Louis, more than an hour away.
Mr. Addington insisted to the pilot that she needed to get to a hospital sooner. Moments later, the plane spiraled down for a steep landing at the deserted airport.
"He held my hand from the second he sat down next to me until the moment the EMTs took me away from the tarmac," Ms. McKelvey said. "It was the hardest thing to let go of his hand because he was my lifeline."
Ms. McKelvey was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism. A doctor in Kansas City said she was within minutes of dying.
"That was the trigger," she said. "I knew immediately I had to find him to thank him."
Her doctor also told her she was lucky a former EMT responded to her call for help, and not a doctor. Doctors are trained to diagnose and treat; EMTs are trained to stabilize patients and get them to a place where they can get care, he explained.
"That's exactly what he did," she said. "Jim was my angel that night, he was the only one who stepped up to help. He was so very calming and compassionate and a true gentleman."
After four days of intensive care, Ms. McKelvey, who lives in Columbia, began a series of blood-thinning treatments that lasted nearly a year.
She didn't expect her search for the man who saved her life would take even longer.
All she knew was his first name, that he was a management consultant in Frederick and that he had two kids. Her search was blocked by privacy laws, which require requests for police reports to be made in person.
"I sent letters, e-mails, voice mails, thought about flying into Kansas City to physically get the police report," she said.
Ms. McKelvey can't remember how many calls she made to United Airlines, but she knew she wanted to nominate Mr. Addington for the Vita Award and to tell him about the impact he had on her when he saved her life.
Ms. McKelvey finally got his e-mail address from United Airlines on March 15. She sat in front of her computer for hours struggling to put into words what it meant for him to get out of his seat that morning.
"He had no idea what happened to me, he didn't even know he saved my life, how serious it was," she said. "He could have put on his headphones and just turned the other way."
She titled the e-mail, "How to say thank you."
They met for dinner three days later in Ellicott City.
"We met just once before, but we knew each other immediately, it was very emotional," she said. "I could have picked him out of a million people, it was just the intensity of that moment frozen in time."
They sat for seven hours over dinner and drinks.
"It was emotionally moving for him, it caught him by surprise, and he was incredibly humbled," she said.
Later that night, Ms. McKelvey e-mailed Mr. Addington to thank him a second time.
"Now we both have the ends to our story," she wrote.
She met her hero. He learned the impact of his actions that day.
"On the contrary," he responded. "I don't think we know the ending yet."
The two have become close friends and talk weekly. Their families have grown close.
"We are so much alike, people tell us it seems as if we have been friends forever," she said. "We're trying to be good parents, work our tails off and travel extensively and we have a bond from that evening."
Mr. Addington said he wouldn't think twice about doing it again if given the opportunity.
"If I really think about it, it's a little bit overwhelming," he said. "Her daughter would have been with out a mother."
Ms. McKelvey is taking advantage of her second chance. She spends more time with her daughter, who will celebrate her ninth birthday Monday, and doesn't get flustered over minor annoyances anymore.
"That lump you feel when you hear this story, that's what I feel every time I see him," she said.
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