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A Liverpool nurse’s quick thinking may have saved a man’s life as he was fighting for breath hanging 30,000ft over the Atlantic.

Emma Channing was flying back from a 10-day holiday in Cancun and expecting to land at Gatwick Airport a few hours later, when an announcement went out over the airplane tannoy.

It was then she met her patient, who was showing all the signs of the killer blood infection sepsis.

The Toxteth nurse convinced the pilot he needed to divert the flight to Canada in order to save the man’s life.

She said: “I was dozing off and watching a movie when an announcement came over the tannoy.

“A voice said ‘we have a medical situation are there any qualified doctors or nurses on board?’.

“Well they put out the announcement and it turned out I was the only one, so they took me to this man who was having breathing difficulties.

“You could tell immediately that it was serious. Even though he had breathing equipment on his lips his face had turned blue.”

Emma, who works at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust, told the ECHO that she was nervous when she first saw her patient.

She said: “When you are in a hospital you are part of a team, and as a nurse assessing a patient you know that there is a line of specialists and doctors behind you.

“But it was just me and him - so I have to admit to being a little bit scared.”

But her professional instincts took over and after a conversation with the sick man about his holiday she discovered what she thought was the cause of his illness.

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She said: “He told me he had broken his rib while on holiday, and that is when I knew it was really serious.

“I suspected it was either sepsis or his lung had expanded when the pressure changed and been punctured on his broken rib.

“He was in a lot of pain and was shouting quite a lot.

“Either way I knew it was really serious - sepsis is the biggest killer in the UK, it is bigger than cancer and it is important to act quickly.”

Emma, who was born in Jersey but has lived in Liverpool since her student days, knew that if her diagnosis was correct then it could be fatal.

After being joined by a student nurse from the cabin, Emma went to the flight’s captain and told him they needed to land or her patient could die.

She said: “It was surreal being in this cockpit as the sun set over the Atlantic and telling this captain what he needed to do.

“I said to him that if this happened in a hospital we would begin treatment within 20 minutes and that every minute we delayed would increase the chance that the patient would die.

“He contacted some Canadian doctors on an emergency radio - and they agreed with me.”

The flight began its descent into St John’s International Airport in Newfoundland, Canada - but the patient wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Emma said: “As we got closer to landing the man started to lose consciousness - it was scary - but I knew that we were close to landing at that paramedics would be meeting us on the runway.”

The 23-year-old nurse handed over her patient and continued on her way home the next day.

But she hasn’t had any updates about the mystery man and is keen to know how he is faring.

The ECHO understands that the man received emergency treatment in Canada and survived - but his current health condition is unknown.

She said: “If he reads this or someone who knows him does, please get in touch.

“You never expect something like that to happen to you on holiday, but when it does you just do everything you can.”