It could have been a scene from a suspenseful movie. On April 17, Southwest Airlines flight 1380 was at cruising altitude and passengers were receiving drinks when Andrew Needum heard the loud boom. He looked over his shoulder to see flight attendants in a squatting position. When he turned his head to the front of the aircraft, oxygen masks deployed. He grabbed his mask and checked to make sure his family members’ masks were in place.
“There was a horrendous noise from the left side of the aircraft,” Needum said. “I looked immediately behind my wife, and a mother with a baby was trying to hold onto her mask and keep a mask on the baby. The plane was shaking, and we had a steep and rapid descent.”
Needum unbuckled his seat belt and helped secure the masks of the young mother and her baby.
“There was a continuous loud noise behind us,” he said. “I knew something had to be done in the back. My wife looked over her right shoulder. We made eye contact – she was giving me approval to go back there. We didn’t know the state of the plane, and I realized it could have been my last look into her eyes. I reached over my dad, grabbed my son’s hands, told him it was going to be okay, and I unbuckled for the last time and went back to row 14.”
Needum’s job has led him into burning buildings, a tornado, and countless crisis situations. A Collin College Fire Academy graduate, he earned his EMT certification and was recently awarded the spirit award in Paramedic class 23.
Calm in Crisis
When Needum stood at row 14, he saw a person hanging out of the airplane window. He and fellow passenger Tim McGinty finally managed to pull Jennifer Riordan back into the plane and laid her across the three seats.
“My training allowed me to see a bigger picture and not remain in the tunnel vision that consumes most people,” Needum said. “You slow down and control yourself, and that allows you to perform at your highest abilities. It took all we had to get her back in. The force of air and our speed made it difficult. I had just finished paramedic school, so I knew the steps we needed to take. We did everything we could.”
Passenger Peggy Phillips, a retired nurse, alternated compressions with Needum.
“On our final descent they said, ‘Brace, brace heads down,’” Needum said. “Peggy’s head was down, and I continued chest compressions. I remember looking up and not seeing any faces. We didn’t know if we were going to belly land. Finally, the plane came to a stop, and the Philadelphia medical crew boarded the plane.”
Needum was completely unprepared for the large-scale media flurry that followed the harrowing plane ride. He even had the opportunity to shake hands with the president in the Oval Office. At one point he asked a firefighter mentor a question that was plaguing him.
“I asked Chief Garrett Rice, ‘What if I had stayed in my seat?’ He said, ‘You would not have been able to live with yourself,’ and I said, ‘You are absolutely right.’ He brought it full circle. I didn’t want the attention and accolades, but I think it is good for the fire service to know what I experienced in case there is a similar situation.”
Just days before his New York trip, Needum learned he passed the national paramedic exam.
“People in the DFW Metroplex view Collin College as a renowned college,” he said. “The fire science and paramedic programs are among the best in the state. The national, computer-based paramedic certification test is so difficult that they give you several chances to retake it. I was able to pass it on the first attempt, and I know that was because of the education I received at Collin College.”