SIA cabin crew save passenger with CPR, win service award

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.