Max

Max is a passenger who hit his head on the ceiling during turbulence, causing a brain bleed.

History
Max and his fiancé, Jay, were flying out of Seattle when their flight hit severe turbulence and Max hit his head hard on the ceiling of the cabin. He was rendered unconscious and lay in the aisle of the plane while Jay tried to rouse him. After the turbulence settled, Meredith ran to help him and he regained consciousness, but was still confused about what had happened. She could feel a skull fracture and suspected he could possibly have a brain bleed. She asked Jay if he knew Max's medical history or medications he took. Jay showed them his pill holder and Nathan noticed that he was taking blood thinners, meaning if he had a brain bleed, it wouldn't stop. But there was nothing they could do on the plane and it wasn't safe to land, so they bandaged his head and got him back in his seat, where his confusion subsided.

Max later started vomiting and then seized. Meredith diagnosed an epidural bleed and searched the plane for anything they could use to drain the blood. She found a single syringe and moved Max to an area of the plane where they cleared out the other passengers and put him in a seat. Harrison ventilated him and kept his head steady while Meredith inserted the needle to drain the blood. When she realized how risky it was to keep reinserting the needle, she decided to disconnect the syringe each time instead. When Nathan was called away for another emergency, Ingrid stepped in and screwed and unscrewed the syringe for Meredith. Because it wasn't working fast enough, Meredith decided to clip the end of the needle off and place a cocktail straw into the hole to drain the blood more quickly. Once they landed, Meredith wrote details of his case in a paper and taped it to Max's chest before he was loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital.

Romantic
He is engaged to Jay.

Notes and Trivia
Jay teases him for having a day-of-the-week pill holder.