Q&A: Pilot Community Cardiac Injuries and Shortages¶
Day 3 · 6:15:51 · Dean Allison · Mark Chapman · Crystal Denomme
- ✈️ Chapman confirms fellow commercial pilots suffered heart failure and death after rollout; Transport Canada briefly allowed phone medicals without ECGs.
- 📉 Regulators worried post-COVID cardiac standards might ground almost everyone, contributing to pilot shortages.
- 💉 He and his nurse wife both took the shots under work mandates despite not wanting them; all three of his doses came from her.
Anecdotal pilot injuries and mandate-driven uptake.
← Chapman: Chronic Pain, Syncope and Surgical Emergencies | Crystal Denomme Sworn: Former Active PSW →
Transcript¶
Speaker H · 6:15:51
The, the—.
Dean Allison · 6:15:52
In the area of flying and pilots, it's a, it's a small fraternity. I know that during COVID I heard from pilots, pilots concerned about taking the vaccine, pilots that actually were injured from it. My question— I realize you're not a statistician, but anecdotally, do you have— do you know of commercial pilots, you know, people you know in the business?
Mark Chapman · 6:16:12
Yes.
Dean Allison · 6:16:12
That have had the same issues as you? I mean, I've heard this, but I— you don't have personal stories.
Mark Chapman · 6:16:17
There was a period of time where Transport Canada would settle during COVID for a telephone interview for the medical. There's no ECG done there. There were pilots that died of heart failure after the COVID thing got rolled out in the United States and collapsed in Canada. They, they had to very carefully look at whether the existing cardiac standard was going to be doable after COVID came out, because that might eliminate almost everybody. So it's definitely a problem for sure.
Dean Allison · 6:16:57
Is that because I have heard we had— I've had a massive— we've had a shortage of pilots, commercial pilots, and then I was under temporary foreign workers where certain airlines were trying to bring more pilots in, but I just, I was just kind of curious. Go ahead.
Mark Chapman · 6:17:12
Yeah, it, it did have a big effect. And, and, you know, like many of the other people that we've heard from, I didn't want to take this stuff. And I took it. My wife's a nurse. She was administering it. And I didn't want her to take it, but she had to do that in order to to work, and I had to take it in order to drive that Harbor Hopper. So I got it. I got all three from my wife. That happened to be the way that turned out. And, uh, so, so I don't know where we go from here, but in terms of my, uh, chronic fatigue, I can walk one aisle of the grocery store and back. That's a lot less than 15K at 32 degrees. I have an electric scooter to get around.
Mark Chapman · 6:18:12
Um, I use a walker. Uh, this morning I arrived with the walker on Wellington Street side. They wanted me to walk around to the other side. I told them I, I won't be able to do that in time to get here. So I would have to stop a lot and rest. I get exhausted wrapping a Christmas present or having a shower or even eating. It's, you know, and have difficulty sometimes manipulating the utensils. So the world is different in a big way.
Dean Allison · 6:18:50
We thank you very much for coming in today and sharing your story with us.
Mark Chapman · 6:18:54
Well, thank you very much for setting this up. It's remarkable.
Crystal Denomme · 6:18:58
Thank you.
Dean Allison · 6:18:58
Thanks so much.