NewsNational

Actions

Woman who suffered medical emergency on international flight searching for doctors who saved her

Posted at 7:32 PM, Dec 08, 2017
and last updated 2017-12-09 12:06:56-05

Debbie Taylor isn’t supposed to be here. In fact, she's supposed to be dead.

"I have some angels up there that said it wasn’t my time yet," she said.

Taylor was 40,000 feet above the Pacific returning home from a vacation in Vietnam when she began to fall ill.

"I remember telling the woman next to me, 'I don’t feel well, I need to get home,'" she said.

Taylor became non-responsive. Luckily, three doctors on board the plane jumped into action.

"They gave me CPR for about five hours," she says.

The flight made an emergency landing in Alaska and paramedics rushed Taylor to the hospital. Taylor's daughter, Cheryl Cowans, raced from Tampa to be by her mother's side.

"I was worried she was going to be brain dead," Cowans said.

Doctors put Taylor on life support. Miraculously, she pulled through.

"After I woke up, I was afraid to go to sleep. I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up," Taylor said.

Two weeks later, Taylor is home, back to being “Mimi” to her grandsons. But she never got a chance to thank the three mystery doctors she calls "her angels."

"You saved my life. Thank you very much," she said.

"I’m sure they want to know what happened. I just want to say thank you (because) my mom is my best friend," Cowans said.

Due to Delta's confidentiality clause, the airline won't release the names of the doctors that helped save Taylor's life

Taylor says she's learned through social media that one of the doctors may live in the Detroit area, and hopes to one day meet the people who kept her alive.