Instagram's 'hottest doctor' saves passenger's life on flight

When plane passenger Matt Faraco went into anaphylactic shock two hours into his flight to Israel, the crew put out an urgent call for any doctors on board.

Not only was there a physician on the Delta Airlines flight - but he just happened to be Dr. Mikhail Varshavski, the ‘world’s hottest doctor.’

Known as Doctor Mike to his 3.2 million Instagram followers, the 29-year-old New Jersey-based doc snapped into action when 26-year-old Matt, from Georgia, US, saw his hands start to swell and his throat began to close over.

To Doctor Mike’s dismay, there was no EpiPen in the plane’s first aid kit so he was forced to inject Matt’s leg with epinephrine, a hormone that relaxed his airway muscles so he could breathe again.

Doctor Mike later revealed that it was a tricky and potentially dangerous procedure as he had to calculate the dosage on the spot.

“It could be toxic to him, to the heart, and it could give him a heart attack,” he told Daily Mail.

If the epinephrine hadn’t worked, Doctor Mike admitted that he would’ve had to make “a very difficult incision with some very rudimentary tools” to open up Matt’s throat.

"Thankfully the drug worked and his airways opened,” he said.

A tense journey

Over remaining seven hours before touching down in Tel Aviv, Doctor Mike - who was voted ‘America's Sexiest Doctor’ in 2015 by People - checked Matt’s vitals every 30 minutes, using the torch on his iPhone to make sure his throat was open.

"We had to monitor his heart and breathing and now it’s great to see him back to full health,” he said.

The pair were reunited by coincidence in Jerusalem on Thursday, after local doctors had discovered that Matt had been bitten by a Lone Star tick - a type of tick found in the US and Mexico - a couple of weeks before his flight.

The bite left him with a severe allergy to meat - which he ate the night before his trip to the Holy Land as part of the Birthright program, a not-for-profit educational organisation that sponsors trips to Israel for young adults of Jewish heritage.

Matt later admitted that he had been feeling some allergy symptoms the night before - such as watery eyes - but didn’t think it was of concern.

After his ordeal, he was full of praise for his saviour, Doctor Mike, saying: “All I can say is how thankful I am. He really saved me.”

Doctor Mike’s plea

Following the in-flight emergency, Doctor Mike is calling for all airlines to carry an EpiPen.

Doctor Mike, who emigrated with his family from Russia to New York at the age of six, is in Israel with the non-profit program America's Voices in Israel that sends high-profile personalities to the Holy Land to improve Israeli-US relations.

The hunky doctor has amassed 3.8million YouTube subscribers thanks to his entertaining yet educational ‘Real Doctor Reacts’ videos.

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