Nurse couple save a man's life mid-flight as he turns purple and slumps over in seat 

A nurse and her boyfriend saved an ailing man's life on a flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Baltimore after the man turned purple and fell unconscious.

Emily Raines, who works as an acute care nurse at Great Baltimore Medical Center, and her boyfriend, a former nurse who now works in finance, were on a Southwest flight home from vacation when a flight attendant called for anyone with medical experience.

A passenger was experiencing a medical emergency and the couple sprung into action to aid the unconscious man who no longer had a pulse.

Fellow passengers rushed to help by providing medical equipment the pair could use.

The couple, Emily Raines and Daniel Shifflett, both of whom are trained nurses, sprung into action midway through the flight to revive an ailing passenger 

'I could hear the panic in the flight attendant's voice,' Raines, 31, told the Washington Post about the call made by the flight attendant about halfway through the roughly three-hour flight. She said she knew 'this is going to be serious.'

She went on to describe the man's completely purple face as 'quite alarming.'

Raines recalled doing some quick preparation for the situation as she and Shifflett made their way to the passenger: ''On our way up there I was trying to pregame, like, 'Hey, if we have to do compressions, I need you to do compressions. I'll take care of everything else,'' she said. 

Raines' boyfriend, Daniel Shifflett, 28, said a crew member had been performing chest compressions on the man while he was slumped over in his seat, but 'you need to be on a flat surface. Otherwise, the compressions aren't going to do anything,' he clarified.

He and Raines laid the middle-aged man on the narrow aisle of the cabin and performed several more rounds of compressions, ultimately reviving him shortly before the plane made an emergency landing in Raleigh, North Carolina.

'I would say about seven minutes before we landed is when we got him back to life,' Rained told the Post.

'It was very overwhelming,' the nurse said, but 'amazing' to watch the man's eyes open.

'Not a lot of times when you give CPR or have situations like this do patients truly made it,' she said. 

Once the plane was on the ground, he was transported by emergency responders to a local hospital.

The Southwest Airlines fight from Ft Lauderdale to Baltimore made an emergency landing in Raleigh, North Carolina

The pair met in 2018 while they were both nurses at a Maryland psychiatric hospital

Screenshot of a text sent by the man's wife to the couple, updating them on her husband's condition and the cause of his medical emergency

The couple has stayed in contact with the man and his wife, who is reported home and 'doing remarkable well.'

'We are still not completely sure what happened,' wrote the wife, adding that her husband did not have a heart attack and the medical emergency was like 'due to low oxygen levels,' though doctors believe 'multiple factors played a role.'

She also thanked the pair profusely for 'saving Michael's life.'

'I cannot possible thank you enough...There are no words,' she wrote. 

The heroic couple were returning home from a four-day Bahamian cruise and had twice attempted to change their return flight, but wound up sticking with the original departure plan.

'I'm not sure what would have happened,' said Raines, if she and her boyfriend had taken a different May 1 flight. 'I'm really glad we were able to be there to help.'