Back home with the family: Mark and his son Zac
Thursday 2 June: Report by Mark Hayman
Well I’ve bailed out and had to come back to the UK so I’m no longer in Slovenia.
The weather was not looking too good for the last three days and I have a pile of work plus a couple of very young children to attend to so when a lift came up to the airport today and it was only 30 quid to change the flight I’m afraid I took the opportunity. At least I shall wake up in the morning to the sight of Kat’s pretty face and not Craig’s bare, farting backside on the other side of the room.
Coming back on the plane today a strange thing happened and it got me to thinking about why I so enjoy hanging around with other paraglider pilots and the general free-flying lifestyle.
A young lad on the Ryan Air flight managed to suck a boiled sweet into his lungs about two minutes from landing. He was in a seat close to me and made a loud sucking noise followed by a lot of arm waving and panicking as he began to choke. Much flapping and panic broke out amongst the cabin staff who were faced with what looked to be a rapidly expiring 12 year-old boy. After a few ineffectual whacks on his back which got the ‘chocolate teapot’ award for services to First Aid I’d had enough and stood up in order to administer the required full-power Hayman wallop between the poor chap’s shoulder blades that was obviously required to shift the offending sweet.
Instantly the corporate, role-play, brainwashing, automaton training of the cabin crew kicked in as they shifted their attention from the deteriorating young boy to something they could really get their teeth into – a passenger without his seatbelt on when about to land!
‘Please sit down sir, it’s for your own safety’, they fussed.
‘Er, you need to whack him really hard between the shoulders or he’ll die’, I said.
‘Please sit down sir, we’re about to land’.
Arrrrgh. Jesus f’ing Christ you idiots.
Fortunately a sturdy 50-something off-duty northern nurse who looked blond, brassy and like she was not going to take any sort of nonsense took matters into her own hands and unbuckled herself from her seat and strode down the plane. It was like a large-bosomed bleach-blond tank approaching.
I was off the hook! The child could expire on her watch and not mine. She was having none of the cabin crew protests and barged her way into the fray. As she attempted to administer a Heimlich manouvre the chief cabin prat was out of his seat at the front and running down the aisle desperately attempting to get the offending nurse to retake her seat.
‘I’m trying to save the boy’s life’, she said angrily.
‘I appreciate that, madam, but it’s for your own safety. You need to have your seatbelt on for landing.’
The young man tried to force her to sit down but he sized her up and concluded he was going to lose any sort of barging contest. She ignored him, duly saved the boy’s life, and then got a big round of applause from the passengers.
I can’t shake the the thought though, that to the cabin crew a young boy choking to death was better than one or two passengers not wearing their seatbelts for a routine landing.
I think this is one thing that we truly get away from in paragliding. You’re up there, against the elements and on your own apart from your fellow pilots. And if it goes wrong they’ll risk their own lives to land, assist and do what’s necessary. Sleeves are rolled up and ingenious rescue solutions found because we’re amongst people who know how to assess risk and can recognise that in an emergency you do what’s necessary and not what the book says, even if you put your own life on the line. It’s about as far as you can get from the brainwashed risk-assessment filled world that modern Britain has become.
Now all I need to do is to drink a little more wine and I’ll be telling you all that ‘You’re all my best friggin’ mates and I love all of you (hic)…’
Cheers, Mark
