Dr. Oz had to rescue a sick passenger on his flight
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In this June 17, 2014, file photo, Dr. Mehmet Oz, vice chairman and professor of surgery, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. Ten top physicians want Columbia University to remove the celebrity doctor from his medical faculty position. They cite what they call the heart surgeon's "egregious lack of integrity" as host of a television program where he promotes weight loss products. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke, File)
Dr. Mehmet Oz sprang into action Wednesday night when a passenger on his flight from New York to Las Vegas collapsed.
“I was grabbed by a stewardess on the plane after a 30-year-old guy collapsed,” he told Page Six on Thursday. “I got him to lie on his back and [put] his feet up on the emergency doors, and with that I began to get a reasonable pulse and blood pressure.”
The host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” who was on his way to the Consumer Electronics Show, then used electrode pads from the plane’s Automated External Defibrillator to create a makeshift EKG test.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I couldn’t tell if he was having a heart attack or not,” Oz said. “His blood pressure was really low but his heart rate was really high.”
Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, said that upon landing, the passenger was immediately escorted off the plane in a wheelchair and taken to the emergency room.
“I was worried about a clot going to his lungs which is common in airplanes,” he said. “While he was laying on the ground he started to shake and he went from being clammy to he had a temperature of 103 by the time he got to the ER.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Oz said he “stayed in touch” with the passenger after the incident, and found out man’s collapse was likely caused by the flu. “The evaluation so far is leaning towards a bad flu and a high fever caused his collapse,” Oz said.
This isn’t the first time the television host has come to a stranger’s rescue. In 2013 he helped a woman who was struck by a taxi in Manhattan.
This article originally appeared in Page Six.