The flight from Barcelona to Singapore was just about to take off from the runway when SIA chief stewardess Serene Koh was alerted to a passenger who had suddenly become unconscious and was slumped in his seat.
Koh immediately checked on the 71-year-old passenger and found he had no breath or pulse and was unresponsive.
With help from leading steward Idris Abu, Koh got the man on the floor of the plane and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
She then signalled to inflight manager Kueh Joo Tong to fetch medical equipment, including an automated external defibrillator.
Their actions saved the man’s life.
The three members of the cabin crew were among 29 individuals and teams lauded for their extraordinary service at the annual Singapore Airlines CEO Service Excellence Awards ceremony on Aug 28, held at the Singapore Edition hotel.
Koh, when asked how she felt at the time, said: “I was shocked, and the first thing that came to my mind was to quickly get a response from him, to check if he had a spontaneous pulse and breathing.”
The team, together with the 10 other cabin crew members onboard, managed to get two doctors and two trained first-aiders onboard to help with the resuscitation. The team also had to keep the other passengers calm and stop them from taking photos.
The unwell passenger was accompanied by his wife – who was crying and pleading with the team to help save him. Some cabin crew members stayed by her side to comfort her.
Koh took turns with one of the doctors to administer CPR on the passenger. It took 20 minutes of continuous CPR and two shocks from the AED for the passenger’s pulse to return.
This was the third time the 48-year-old had to perform CPR on the job in her 26 years working for SIA.
The passenger was later carried off the flight by emergency medics and rushed to hospital, where he underwent surgery and had a stent placed inside a blocked artery to restore normal blood flow to the heart.
He then stayed on in Barcelona for a month to recover before leaving Spain and returning home to Sydney.
Both Koh and Kueh said many passengers clapped when the man’s pulse returned. A number of them also thanked the team for saving him.
The incident on Oct 13, 2025, set the flight’s departure time back by about an hour – although the plane arrived in Singapore right on time at about 5am.
Kueh – who had never been involved in anything like this during his 34 years with SIA – was shocked at first, but instinct kicked in, and he put into practice what he had learnt during training.
The 57-year-old inflight manager had heard from the SIA station manager in Barcelona that the passenger’s medical checks had found him to be in good shape.
This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
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