So it's a sea day, Peter and I got up to run registration for the art classes as per normal, but Tia and Gerry are not about today. Tia isn't well. I know that the last time I saw her, she had just thrown herself down on a sofa because whe wasn't feeling well with her indigestion problems, so I assumed it was a continuation of that.
Once Peter's class was up and running, so I sat in the library as usual, ended up talking to Hazel and Phil. Just after they left, I looked up to see the young lad who makes coffee n stuff in the library, Charlewin, helping one of the passengers. He normally does. She sometimes has difficulty standing, and he makes sure she is on her feet and stable before she walks off.
Except this time she wasn't getting up. She seemed to be shaking, saying "I don't know what's the matter with me". She was obviously in distress, he wanted to call the medical centre, but he was holding her up. Of course I dashed over to hold her whilst he made the call. She was shaking, eyes closed. I'm saying to her, "Just relax. Don't be scared. Help is coming." He's telling her to breathe in, breathe out. Nice and calm.
It didn't take long for the medics to turn up. Charlewin told them that she'd had a seizure, and they hurried her away. I hoped she would be OK.
Then as we tidying up the class after the morning session, there was a code Alpha up on deck 14. We found out during lunch from Joanne the pianist that a guy had passed out up there. Due to the heat we thought, easy done with too much alcohol.
But maybe it was a little more than that. As the afternoon wore on, the Captain first announced that we would have to turn towards Spain and prepare for a Helicopter evacuation, before following that with a series of anouncements calling staff to prepare and telling us what to expect. The helicopter seemed to arrive in no time, and the patient lifted off and taken away before you could say "The irony is that is is quicker to get a helicopter ambulance to a cruise ship with a full medical team in the middle of the Mediterranean than it is to get an ordinary one to an old guy who's had a fall in England". (It took about 8 hours I think, and he died).
Everybody assumed that the helicopter evacuation was as a result of the Code Alpha on deck 14. I was hoping it wasn't the lady in the library.
After all that drama, we decided to spend the evening out. It was either opera in the playhouse or guitar classis in the Brittania Lounge. We should have chose the opera.
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