As a controller for the last 30+ years, I found this extremely difficult to listen to. From day one you are told with a chuckle to keep your board up to date in case you become incapacitated, never expecting it to actually happen. The unfortunate thing is that she was on her own which is not at uncommon scenario at even the busiest towers during the quiet hours.
This made me think how I may have handled this.
She is probably unaware what is happening to her and has no reason to suspect things are going to go bad really fast. If you have something acute, chest pains for example, you might think to recall the other controller, but with an insidious event like this, you may feel OK right up to the point where you can no longer take action to help yourself.
The aircrew obviously were alarmed by what they were hearing and took action to ensure safety was not compromised. I hope that if I were in her position that I could count on aircrew to take action on my behalf: don't ask for taxi, listen to what is going on and if you deem it necessary, call for assistance on my behalf either on your previous frequency on by phone.
None of the towers I've worked at have any formal rapid recall procedure (panic button) but I think that may change. This is more likely than providing an extra controller on night shift.
I don't see how having a specified time (midnight or 90 minutes on shift) before combining will mitigate this. If you're going to have an episode, it isn't more likely to happen before midnight than after. I doubt that a combined workload was a contributing factor but I can see that the FAA would want to be seen to be doing something, even if its really nothing.
I hope she gets all the help she needs.
Keep safe.
Last edited by cossack; 10th Nov 2018 at 22:02.