What happens if I or someone I love has a life-threatening medical event on an airplane?
Part historical narrative and part memoir, SHOCKED answers this perplexing question in the true but yet-untold story of how in 1998, life-saving defibrillators, now commonplace on the ground, were placed not into the hands of medical professionals, but flight attendants.
SHOCKED also tells of the very first dramatic 'resurrection' of a passenger in 1998 on a flight leaving for Mexico, oddly just days after the defibrillator was placed on the plane. Mr. Robert Giggey, and his flight attendant rescuer, Shawn Lynn, were both 'reborn' that day. One was given new physical life, and the other, peace, direction and a renewed courage to live.
As a renowned aerospace medicine specialist and corporate medical director for the largest airline in the world, Dr. David McKenas became responsible for the health and safety of the millions of passengers who fly each year. SHOCKED tells how he interacted with a tough corporate world and government bureaucracy to pioneer the defibrillator program. An entire lifetime of seemingly unrelated unusual events, or yes, "miracles" - in his own life, and in the lives of others - ultimately led to the survival of so many people who experienced dreaded, deadly, cardiac arrest on the ground, and at the worst of all possible locations - 35,000 feet.
Dr. McKenas is a board-certified specialist in both Aerospace Medicine and Occupational Medicine. He served as Corporate Medical Director for American Airlines from 1992 to 2002, a period that included the final years at the helm of legendary American CEO Robert Crandall. In his early years, Dr. McKenas was a near musical prodigy who studied music composition, piano and voice, and who performed in a professional choir and as a piano soloist and accompanist as a child. He minored in college in music but earned his undergraduate degree in biochemistry before studying medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical Center and the Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston, MA. As an Air Force Officer, Dr. McKenas became a board-certified specialist in the unique field of Aerospace Medicine. He served as the lead aerospace medicine doctor in the Department of Defense's Manager Space Transportation System Contingency Support [DDMS] program at Cape Canaveral, Florida, where he coordinated world-wide emergency care for NASA's Astronauts in the event of a space shuttle catastrophe. As an aerospace medicine flight surgeon, Dr. McKenas also received full flight training, up to the point of soloing on a T-37 jet airplane. Upon leaving the Air Force in 2002, Dr. McKenas joined American Airlines, first as a staff physician then, shortly thereafter Corporate Medical Director. He is one of the world's leading experts in Aviation and Aerospace Medicine. Today he practices medicine part time with the Carrollton, TX, Fire Department, where he makes sure firefighters are medically safe to perform their strenuous work, and screens for illnesses such as cancer that can harm firefighters. He composes music and is involved in various church-related mission efforts around the globe.
Reed is an award-winning business and financial journalist who has spent three decades focused primarily on the U.S. airline industry and related aviation and travel service companies - plus all the workers, unions and legal and legislative issues related to those industries. He worked for the Arkansas Democrat (today the Democrat-Gazette) from 1978 to 1981, the Fort Worth StarTelegram from 1981 to 2002, and USA TODAY from 2002-2010. Today he is a senior contributor for FORBES.com, where he continues to focus on the airline and related industries and is a frequent contributor to other aviation and general interest publications. Reed also operates his own communications consulting firm, advising clients on communications, media, and strategy matters. He is the author of American Eagle: The Ascent of Bob Crandall and American Airlines (1993, St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunn Books) and co-author of American Airlines, US Airways, and the Creation of the World's Largest Airline (2014, McFarland). Reed earned his bachelor's degree in Journalism at the University of Arkansas and his master's degree in Divinity at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
