About 24 minutes before Austrian Airlines Flight OS79 was scheduled to land at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv on October 17, something happened near row 23.
There was an unusual noise, then a call for medical assistance. A passenger was in distress.
Within moments, people began appearing from different parts of the airplane. Some had medical training. Others simply offered to help.
Flight attendants brought out emergency equipment. An automated external defibrillator appeared, along with an assortment of medical supplies. Several passengers gathered around a woman who was receiving care in the aisle.
And the airplane began to shake.
We were approaching Ben Gurion Airport, and the turbulence was getting rough. Very rough.
From my seat, I watched a makeshift medical team assemble around a stranger, working on the floor of a commercial airliner as it bounced through the sky.
A woman in a light-colored sweater hurried forward from somewhere behind me. She appeared to have medical experience, and for much of the next half hour, she barely stopped moving. By the time we landed, she was sweating heavily.
A man who appeared to be directing the medical response worked alongside a woman who seemed equally comfortable with the equipment. At one point, I noticed them exchanging affectionate looks while they worked.
It was a fleeting moment of tenderness in an otherwise frightening scene.
Someone held a bag of saline solution overhead. Another passenger supported the woman's elevated legs. An IV line was started in her hand. Medical supplies passed between people who, as far as I could tell, hadn't known one another half an hour earlier.
The turbulence kept coming.
At one point, a flight attendant brought a cup of water, only for a sudden jolt to spill it over nearby passengers.
Still, the work continued.
There were conversations in German. My traveling companion, Brittany, who was seated closer to the activity, also heard French and Hebrew.
I couldn't understand most of what was being said.
But I understood what was happening.
People were doing whatever they could to help someone they didn't know.
As our scheduled landing time approached, the activity continued. The patient was moved from the aisle floor into a row of seats. A blood pressure cuff and oxygen monitor appeared. Someone brought a large trash bag to collect used medical supplies.
The woman in the light sweater kept moving. The saline bag was still being held aloft. Another passenger continued supporting the patient's feet.
I wondered whether we had abandoned our first approach or were being kept in the air to give the medical team more time. I couldn't tell. I only knew that we were still flying, and the people around row 23 were still working.
Eventually, a flight attendant announced that the passenger was stable. Emergency personnel would meet the aircraft, and we were asked to remain seated when we arrived.
The landing gear came down.
We touched down smoothly, and the cabin erupted in applause.
Maybe people were applauding the pilots. Maybe they were relieved to be on the ground. Maybe they were applauding the strangers who had spent the last half hour trying to help a woman in trouble.
I suspect it was some combination of all three.
We taxied to the terminal, where emergency medical personnel boarded. For a while, nobody moved. Eventually, passengers seated ahead of the patient were permitted to leave.
I collected my things and stepped into Israel.
A little later, standing in line for passport control, I found myself near the man who had directed much of the medical response. The woman who had worked alongside him was there, too.
I thanked them.
They were both doctors, I learned, and partners.
I asked what had happened to the passenger.
The doctor said he didn't know. She had been having difficulty breathing, and they had worked to stabilize her.
That was the extent of his explanation.
I never got their names.
I don't know the name of the woman who seemed to spend the entire emergency racing between the patient and the medical supplies. Or the people who held the IV bag, elevated the patient's legs, or helped make room for those providing care.
I don't know the patient's name, either. I don't know what caused her distress or what happened after the paramedics arrived.
But I know what I saw.
An airplane full of people from different places, speaking different languages, traveling for different reasons. People who, under ordinary circumstances, might never have exchanged a word.
And when one of them needed help, the others responded.
We had arrived in Israel, a place where the divisions between people have shaped generations of history and inflicted extraordinary suffering.
I had spent the final half hour of our flight watching something much simpler.
A woman needed help breathing.
And strangers helped her.
They didn't know her name. They didn't know what was wrong. They couldn't promise that what they were doing would be enough.
They did it anyway.
