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'Skypoxia': Pretty soon it wasn't funny at all

Friday, March 26, 1999

By SCOTT SUNDE Mail Author
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

© 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved.

Deby Bradford and her fellow Alaska Airlines MD-80 flight attendants used to call it "skypoxia."

They had the giddiness of three martinis, without taking a sip.

A simple remark would double them over in laughter, tears rolling down their cheeks.

Routine tasks became impossible.

  Photo
Deby Bradford, former Alaska Airlines flight attendant, describes her illness: "I thought I was going to die. I couldn't breathe. I felt a heavy pressure on my chest. I had a bloody nose and was coughing up blood. I felt like I was in a deep, dark tunnel."
Grant M. Haller/P-I

Bradford recalls not being able to make change for a passenger who bought a cocktail and trying to put ice in a soda can instead of the glass.

And there was the time she found a baby bottle on the plane and ran into the Los Angeles terminal to return it to the passenger. She found herself lost, unable to find her way back to the Alaska gate.

It might be comical if it weren't so serious. Bradford believes she was exposed to toxic fumes, damaging her health and her cognitive abilities.

Today, she is striving to rid herself of poisons she believes invaded her body and to regain her full mental abilities.

"It's a wrong thing to be happening to people," said Bradford, 47, of Edmonds. "It's just so wrong."

 
See also: Airline attendants very sick, and why is a mystery

Becoming a flight attendant seemed natural for Bradford. Her grandfather flew small planes. As a girl she would bail out of a swing early, sometimes wearing handkerchiefs on her arms, pretending they were wings.

Later, she earned pilot's and instructor's licenses.

In 1990, she became an Alaska flight attendant.

"I loved the job. I had a fun time. I was making good money and going on good trips," she said.

Then there was the skypoxia. Sometimes it came with the odor of dirty diapers or nail-polish remover, she said. She and other flight attendants blamed their giddiness and headaches on altitude.

"It just wasn't taken too seriously back then."

But it was frightening "to lose yourself that way." After she got lost in Los Angeles, a pilot on a return flight asked her if she could evacuate an airplane -- the responsibility of flight attendants in an emergency.

"It was just like asking a drunk if he can drive," she said.

She spent the flight in the cockpit, on oxygen.

Then came the morning in March 1998. She woke up in Vancouver, B.C., during a three-day work trip.

"I thought I was going to die. I couldn't breathe. I felt a heavy pressure on my chest. I had a bloody nose and was coughing up blood," she said.

"I felt like I was in a deep, dark tunnel."

The bloody coughing and the nosebleeds continued for 10 days. At times her head ached so badly she was sure it was about to burst. "I was so messed up. It was too much. I couldn't do anything."

It was the end of her flight attendant days.

Today, Bradford is learning to work in an Alaska Airlines department that provides vacation packages to travelers -- twice the hours for 70 percent less pay, she says.

But in five months, she can take early retirement.

She's also one of 26 flight attendants suing Alaska, the maker of the aircraft and the maker of some equipment. She wants the planes fixed, she said, and her former co-workers protected.

She is taking dietary supplements to cleanse her body and is living as healthily as possible. She's learned to endure the sore throat that just won't go away.

Slowly, her abilities are returning. Today, she can carry on a cogent conversation, which seemed impossible not too long ago.

"I don't think I'm thinking my best. I hope to in the future, but I'm thinking better than I did a few months ago."

P-I reporter Scott Sunde can be reached at 206-448-8331 or scottsunde@seattle-pi.com

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