Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum has been hospitalized after fainting aboard a passenger airline en route to the East Coast on Wednesday morning. The incident prompted the flight crew to make an emergency landing in Las Vegas, officials said.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Blum said she is fine, but will spend the night in Las Vegas.
Blum, who recently won a battle with breast cancer, plans to return to Santa Barbara on Thursday.
“My heart doctor had changed my blood-pressure medication last week,” she said. “He said it will take a week or two before it kicks in — I think it did on the airplane.”
Blum, 64, was on her way to Connecticut to visit a new grandchild. Her son, a medical student at Yale, and his wife have a 2-week-old child.
Blum’s flight took off from Santa Barbara at 6 a.m. and had not been in the air very long when she passed out. The plane was on its way to Dallas.
“I told my husband I was feeling car sick,” she said. “Then I passed out.”
She joked that she may have lost 50 or so votes, because the incident caused people to miss their connecting flights. Blum said her blood pressure is back down, and Thursday she will undergo a stress cardio test.
“I’m kind of disappointed I wasn’t able to go see the baby,” she said. “But I’ll go in a few more weeks, for Christmas or something.”
Councilman Das Williams said he’s confident Blum will be OK.
“She’s a tough lady,” he said. “This is a woman who had a double mastectomy and went back to work the next day.”