Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital nurse on honeymoon helps diabetic woman mid-flight

A McHenry nurse said she relied on her training and an “educated guess” when she helped another passenger experiencing low blood sugar on a flight to Honolulu, Hawaii, for her honeymoon.

United Airlines gave Sharon Kucharski a $150 voucher toward a future flight and a thank-you email for her actions, too.

It was the commotion toward the front of their plane Sept. 6 that made Kucharski and her new husband, Mike Ginn, concerned at first, the couple said.

“Both Sharon and I had settled in for a movie, cuddled in for the rest of the flight,” Ginn said.

The McHenry couple married on Sept. 4 and were on their honeymoon trip, having taken off from O’Hare International Airport at 9 a.m. two days later.

Three hours into the flight, a flight attendant “came back rather frantically,” Ginn said.

“She remembered that Sharon had mentioned she was a nurse,” he said.

A passenger was in distress, the flight attendant told them.

They had chatted before the flight took off, and Kucharski mentioned she was a nurse at Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital.

After following the flight attendant, Kucharski found a woman in her 80s who was barely responsive.

“I saw she was sweating and shaking, slumping down in her seat, and her pulse was racing,” Kucharski said.

Her training as a cardiopulmonary rehab nurse kicked in. She asked the woman if she was in any pain, what her name was, and asked her to smile, Kucharski said, ruling out a heart attack or a stroke.

Then, she asked if the woman had diabetes.

“She said ‘yes,’ ” Kucharski said. “Now we are getting somewhere.”

Kucharski got more medical history: The woman’s husband had recently died, and she’d recently lost weight. She also didn’t bring a glucometer with her on the trip to check her blood sugar and hadn’t eaten since the previous night, she said.

Kucharski saw that one of two daughters with the woman had an open can of soda on her tray table. Kucharski told the woman to take a sip.

It was now close to noon Chicago time, and the plane was over Los Angeles. Someone from the flight deck came out for an update, the couple said. They were told they had 10 minutes to decide whether to take a medical emergency diversion to Los Angeles, Kucharski said.

Ginn understood what would happen if the flight was diverted. He served in the Air Force and spent most of his career as an airplane maintenance mechanic, but now is a real estate agent, Ginn said.

“If an airplane diverts … the flight crews has to be swapped out, another crew brought on, we’d probably be deplaned. It costs a lot of money,” Ginn said.

Kucharski asked the flight crew for orange juice and peanut butter crackers – anything to continue getting the woman’s blood sugar up.

As the woman continued to eat and drink, her condition improved. She stopped sweating and perked up. They were eight minutes into the divert-or-not deadline, Kucharski said.

All of her moves up to this point had been an educated guess, Kucharski said.

“It was all the signs and symptoms of high and low blood sugar, so that is what I went by … and it worked,” she said.

Kucharski stayed at the woman’s side for another half-hour, tracking her progress. She suggested the woman call her doctor and buy a glucometer as soon as they landed.

As Kucharski walked to the back of the plane again, the entire cabin broke into applause, Ginn said.

Kucharski said she wanted to use the story to remind people with any chronic medical condition to heed their doctor’s instructions and bring their medications and diagnostic equipment with them on vacations.

“Your doctors ... they give instructions on self-care, and [patients] need to be following it,” she said.