Last Flight Home
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In order to relieve the stress of this profession, I turn to my hobby -- medal collecting and, in no time, became an expert. I write about my medals and correlate these medals with stories that represent them, mostly historical events, but once in a while, the story transcends the medal.
Recently, a new member of our Medal Collecting group asked my expert opinion on a medal being sold to him.
It was a rare Magsaysay Award medallion and, apparently, it was named. How exciting, I thought! It was awarded in 1992, I was told. As there were only two Filipinos who were awarded that year, it would be easy to guess who the awardee was.
Gingerly I was shown a picture of the reverse of the medal, which showed the date it was given and partially showed the award citation. After reading the citation, suddenly my world stopped.
A surge of memories, long forgotten and buried in the recesses of my consciousness re-emerged without warning.
I found myself transported back to 2017. I remember it vividly like yesterday. I was on a plane with my wife on our way to New York via Vancouver to visit relatives. I remember it was a long, tiring flight. As I lay half asleep, the intercom blared, "Is there a doctor on the plane?"
Oh no, an emergency! On the plane! A doctor's worst nightmare unfolding. I had to drag myself out of my slumber together with my wife, also an MD, and we made our way up front, hoping it was nothing serious.
As we were hastily ushered in the business class cabin, we were welcomed by a most pitiful site--an old man sprawled on the carpeted floor, unconscious, a probable victim of a heart attack.
There was no time to lose. The doctor in us sprang into action. My wife doing the cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, me inserting an IV line to infuse inotropes to try to revive a heart that stopped beating.
It was eerily quiet in that cabin, I recalled. Only the hushed voice from my lips can be heard as I ordered a staccato of commands to anyone who was within hearing distance from me: "Get me oxygen, get me the defibrillator, get me more vials of epinephrine..." in that desperate attempt to save the life of a stranger, thousands of feet above Vancouver.
For what seemed like eternity, we kept trying to medically revive him. All of a sudden, a tap on my shoulder. I was being summoned by the chief flight attendant to proceed to the pilot's cockpit. Vancouver tower wanted to talk to me. I instinctively knew what they were up to. Vancouver would deviate the plane to the nearest medical facility if there was an iota of chance that we could still save that man.
As I strode to the pilot's cockpit area, I couldn’t have imagined how beautiful that night was; the pitch-black outside was punctuated by hundreds and thousands of serenely twinkling stars. It was a sight to behold. I thought to myself, how ironic that this was happening on the most beautiful of nights.
I was so sorry to inform Vancouver tower that it was too late. We could not revive him. There was no pulse. They understood.
“I remember it was a long, tiring flight. As I lay half asleep, the intercom blared, “Is there a doctor on the plane?”
Oh no, an emergency. On the plane. A doctor’s worst nightmare unfolding.”
I went back to the scene of the bedlam. All eyes were trained on me, waiting for my next move. I knelt in front of the old man, and instinctively took over the CPR.
It was a surreal moment. Instead of counting the usual "one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three " in perfect cadence with my chest thrust as I was trained to do in medicine, I found myself whispering in prayer, "Our Father, who art in Heaven...."
A few moments later I stood up--again all eyes were trained on me--silently approached the old man's son and said solemnly, "I am sorry. We have lost him." The son, shell-shocked and teary-eyed could only mutter, "Thank you…doctor."
This flood of memories came rushing back as I read partially the citation on the back of the medal: "...fostering economic growth and mutual understanding in Asia."
It was the citation on that prestigious Magsaysay medallion awarded in 1992 to a remarkable man, a most revered and beloved industrialist Taipan, who remained humble both in life…and in death.
The same man who flew his last journey over the skies of Vancouver, almost five years ago and died on that fateful flight in my arms.
His name? Washington Sycip.
Washington SyCip
I do not know what happened to the medal. It does not matter. The memory of what transpired is more important.
Business icon and Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Washington SyCip died at age 96 on October 7, 2017 aboard a Philippine Airlines flight to New York.
First posted in the author’s page on Facebook.
Dr. Genaro "Blas" Bermudez is a practicing cancer and blood specialist for children and infants. He is an avid Philippine medal collector and in his spare time, he writes about the history of the medals he collects and reads voraciously about Philippine history.
