16 | JUNE 1 • 2023 

O

n a 15-hour flight 
home from South 
Africa, a call came 
on the loudspeaker asking 
for a nurse or a medical 
professional onboard. A 
woman at the back of the 
Delta plane was having a 
medical emergency, and a 
few minutes went by that no 
one answered the call.
Incoming Michigan 
State University medical 
student Paige Stearn, 23, of 
Bloomfield Hills looked to 
her mother, Terri Stearn, an 
MSU Hillel board member, 

for guidance.
“I didn’t know whether 
to press my button or not,” 
Paige Stearn recalls. “I’m an 
EMT. I’m not a doctor yet.”
Paige Stearn was a trained 
EMT professional who 
had worked at Medstar 
in Lansing, only recently 
resigning from her position 
as she gets ready to start 
classes at the College of 
Osteopathic Medicine, where 
she is expected to graduate 
in 2027.
However, her mother told 
her to press the button. Paige 

Stearn lit up the button that 
alerts a flight attendant to 
her seat and informed them 
that she was an EMT.

JUMPING INTO ACTION
She was rushed to the 
back of the plane, where a 
23-year-old pregnant woman 
was in “horrible pain.”
Stearn took the young 
woman’s blood pressure, 
pulse and saturated oxygen. 
While her blood pressure 
was a little low, the vitals 
were mostly normal. “I 
wasn’t too concerned about 
a life-threatening situation,” 
Stearn recalls of the May 16 
flight.
While a doctor from South 
Africa assisted the situation, 
he didn’t have any emergency 
medical training and 
looked to Stearn as the lead. 
Together, and in conjunction 
with medical control on the 
ground, they decided to give 
her medication to ease the 
pain.
They also put the woman 
on oxygen in case she would 
go into shock.
For the remaining three 
hours of the flight, Stearn 
stayed by the pregnant 
woman’s side. She kept in 
constant contact with ground 
control, who readied an 
ambulance on the runway to 
meet the Delta flight as soon 
as it landed at Detroit Metro 
Airport.
Stearn’s father, Todd 
Stearn, a board member 

and vice president of 
Congregation Beth Ahm, 
went to check on his 
daughter, but reported to his 
wife that she “had it under 
control.”
Terri Stearn also says that 
the entire flight stayed seated 
during the emergency.
As soon as the flight 
landed, medical personnel 
boarded the plane. 
Paige Stearn briefed the 
paramedics on the situation 
and the pregnant woman was 
taken off the plane before 
anyone else could disembark.

REDISCOVERING 
STRENGTH
For Stearn, who was an MSU 
student and on campus the 
night of the school shooting 
on Feb. 13, where three 
students were killed, the 
in-flight emergency was a 
moment that solidified her 
desire to one day become a 
doctor.
During the school 
shooting, Stearn was 
teaching a yoga class and 
helped her students stay 
calm and hidden. While her 
mother says her daughter 
was OK at first, the emotions 
surfaced in the coming days, 
eventually turning into a 
tidal wave.
“She told me, ‘I don’t think 
I want to go into emergency 
medicine anymore,’” Terri 
Stearn recalls. “‘I would 
have been the person at 
the hospital receiving these 

OUR COMMUNITY

MSU medical student and school 
shooting survivor helps 
woman in distress.

In-Flight 
 Emergency

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE STEARN FAMILY

Paige Stean 
in South 
Africa.

“I DIDN’T KNOW WHETHER TO 
PRESS MY BUTTON OR NOT. I’M AN 
EMT. I’M NOT A DOCTOR YET.” 

— PAIGE STEARN

