Barry Miles instinctively grabbed for his five-year-old son as the plane instantly dropped ten feet. “Weeee!” squealed little Navesh in delight. After another ten feet, passengers began screaming and crying. A storm pummeled the plane, tossing the jetliner about like a sparrow.

 

The captain’s reassuring voice beamed through the intercom. “We are experiencing significant turbulence and loss of cabin pressure. Oxygen masks above your seat will deploy. Please place the mask on first, and then assist other passengers.”

 

Barry looked at his son. The gleeful child turned wailing boy mirrored the palpable terror of the fellow passengers. Navesh began hyperventilating and wheezing, his asthma kicking in.

 

Ignoring his own mask and the dizziness on the edges of his consciousness, Barry reached for his son. He didn’t appreciate how fast the air was changing in the cabin and that he only had seconds to put his mask on to feed oxygen to his brain. Just as he pulled down his son’s mask, hypoxia overcame him, and everything faded to black.