Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty's voice was still shaking Monday, nearly two days after he put his first aid skills to use and revived a man who had passed out on a plane trip back to Prince George.
The last flight from Vancouver on Friday night had just taken off. After a brief conversation with someone who was sitting across the aisle, Doherty had settled in, put his headphones on and turned away.
It was at that moment when he heard a "loud bang."
He turned back and saw the person he had been talking to wide-eyed and looking ahead to where the man had collapsed and had fallen into another seat where somebody was sitting.
"He said 'do you know first aid?'" Doherty said over the phone from Ottawa.
Doherty made his way to the man who was "white as a ghost" and, with some help, got him into a prone position on the seat after the other passenger got out of the way.
"He was unresponsive, his eyes were wide open and I couldn't get a heartbeat," Doherty said.
For about a minute and a bit, Doherty gave the man chest compressions - minor pushes and massages - while holding his hand in search of a pulse before he came to. From there, they administered care and attention while the flight attendant relayed updates to the pilot, who turned the plane around and headed back to Vancouver.
It turned out Doherty knows the man.
"It think that's probably why it hit me hard," he said. "You know the family and probably the hardest thing was watching the ambulance kind of pull away, leaving him by himself down in Vancouver."
Doherty has since talked to the man and his wife as well as Air Canada, and was told he had to be defibrillated twice while in Vancouver but is now recovering.
He told Doherty he wasn't feeling well and had got up to go to the washroom when he collapsed. Doherty said it was probably a good thing it happened before he had reached the washroom.
"That's what I said to him, was 'if you had been in the bathroom, we wouldn't have known,'" Doherty said.
The event had capped an already emotional week that saw Doherty's private members bill to improve support for first responders, veterans and military personnel affected by post-traumatic stress disorder advanced to the senate.
"It rattles you," Doherty said. "You're thankful to make a difference but I think probably the worst was I knew how serious it was even when he came to. He was smiling, putting on a brave front."
It was the first time Doherty used CPR, part of the first aid training he picked up while coaching hockey.
"I don't think we did anything different than anything anyone else would have done," Doherty said.
