A HERO nurse saved a woman’s life in 2005 after she suffered a massive asthma attack on a plane thousands of feet above the Atlantic.

The captain decided to divert the plane to Iceland after Ronnie Lawton warned him that the patient might not survive the four hours to Heathrow.

And Ronnie, who only qualified as a nurse two years earlier, ended up tending three patients after two other people on board fell ill.

The Johnstone man was enjoying a relaxing flight home from New York with pal Jim Sneddon when a stewardess asked if there were any doctors or nurses on board.

Ronnie, a theatre nurse at the Southern General, answered the call and went to treat a Weston-Super-Mare woman who had suffered an asthma attack.

But her condition worsened and Ronnie was forced to move her to the back of the plane, where he set up a makeshift hospital with the medical equipment on board.

He kept in touch with a doctor over a satellite phone but asked the captain to divert the plane when he realised she was not responding to treatment.

Ronnie, 44, said at the time: “Her health was becoming poorer by the minute and I realised then I didn’t think she would make the journey.”

The quick-thinking nurse soon found himself dealing with another two patients, as the woman’s son also suffered an asthma attack and another passenger had a massive nosebleed.

The plane was met by a medical team after making an emergency landing in Iceland.