AVIATION

24 August 2022: Kodiak, Alaska

Kodiak Airport (ADQ) Supervisory TSA Officer Sarah Webb was using her split shift break to get lunch when she passed a taxi stopped on the side of the road. “It just didn’t look right,” remembers Webb. “I turned around and went back and asked if everything was OK,” said Webb, realizing this particular area of Kodiak was notorious for having poor cell phone reception. Her intuition being correct, Webb discovered a family in distress. A female (mother) was hunched over near the taxi. She appeared to have difficulty breathing and started to complain of chest pain. The husband said he thought his wife was having some kind of allergic reaction. Leaving nothing to chance, Webb offered her EPI (epinephrine auto-injection) pen and a four mile ride to Providence Kodiak hospital, since the taxi driver seemed reluctant to assist them. Webb called 911 and said she was en route to the hospital with an ill passenger and asked to have someone from the ER meet her and the stricken woman. She was then airlifted via Alaska Life Med to Providence Hospital in Anchorage and treated for a myocardial infarction. The doctors explained had she not arrived so quickly, the medication she needed to survive would not have not been administered in time to save her. “I was overwhelmed when I saw the boys at the checkpoint,” recalls Webb. “The boys said that their mom was far more comfortable riding with me than the taxi and thanked me for stopping to help.” And with a fist bump from one and a hug from the other, the boys were gone. “I had to step away from the checkpoint after the interaction with the boys,” said Webb.