The astronaut who caused NASA’s first medical evacuation earlier this year said Friday that doctors still don’t know why he suddenly fell ill on the International Space Station.
Mike Finckewho has flown in space four times, says he was having dinner on Jan. 7 after preparing for a spacewalk the next day when it happened. He couldn’t speak and couldn’t remember any pain, but his anxious crewmates sprang into action when they saw him in distress and called the flight surgeons on the ground for help.
“It was completely unexpected. It was incredibly fast,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Fincke, 59, a retired Air Force colonel, said the episode lasted about 20 minutes and he felt fine afterward. He said he still feels that way. I had never experienced anything like it, before or since.
Doctors have ruled out a heart attack and Fincke said he was not drowning, but everything else remains on the table and could be related to his 549 days of weightlessness. He had been on his last stay on the space station for 5 and a half months when the problem struck him like “a very, very fast bolt of lightning.”
“My crewmates definitely saw that I was in trouble,” he said, with the six of them gathered around him. “It was all hands on deck in a matter of seconds.”
Fincke said he cannot give further details about his medical episode. The space agency wants to make sure other astronauts don’t feel their medical privacy will be compromised if something happens to them, he said.
The space station’s ultrasound machine came in handy when the episode occurred, he said, and has undergone numerous tests since returning to Earth. NASA is studying the medical records of other astronauts to see if there are any related cases that may have occurred in space, he said.
Fincke identified himself late last month as the one who was ill to put an end to swirling public speculation.
She still feels bad because her illness causes the cancellation of the spacewalk – which would have been her 10th spacewalk, but the first for her partner Zena Cardman – and causes an early return for her and her two other crewmates. SpaceX brought them back on January 15, more than a month ahead of schedule, and they went straight to the hospital.
“I’ve been very lucky to be very healthy. So this was very surprising for everyone”said.
1 / 48 | Photos: Look at the Puerto Ricans who have gone to space and those who are preparing for the trip. Joseph Michael Acabá is an educator, hydrogeologist, and NASA astronaut of Puerto Rican descent.
Fincke stopped apologizing to everyone after new NASA administrator Jared Isaacman ordered him to stop.
“This wasn’t you. This was space, right?” his companions assured him. “You didn’t let anyone down.”
Always optimistic, he maintains the hope of returning to space one day.
This story was translated from English to Spanish with an artificial intelligence tool and was reviewed by an editor before publication.