Flight attendants have to deal with everything. Their job is to make sure that our travels are as safe and pleasant as possible. It means that they have to be prepared to handle a lot of strange, tense, and even sometimes scary situations.

In Cabin Fever: Sizzling Secrets of a Virgin Airlines Flight Attendant, former flight attendant Mandy Smith reveals some of the insane incidents that happened during her decade flying around the world.

1. Providing Serious Medical Care

Not only can flight attendants handle basic first aid, they can deal with more severe issues. Smith and her colleagues managed everything from assisting a woman who sadly had a miscarriage mid-flight to stitching up a five-inch surgical wound that had reopened onboard.

2. Managing Unruly Passengers

Although the average passenger just wants to get from Point A to Point B without causing any problems, others can’t seem to keep themselves from drinking too much, instigating brawls with others onboard, trying to get into restricted zones, and so on.

3. Calming Hysterical Passengers

Not surprisingly, passengers get pretty anxious, and even terrified, when they find out about mechanical problems mid-flight. Of course, it’s up to the flight crew to put on a happy face and calm everyone down.

4. Helping Land the Plane

Copilots are meant to take over if the pilot of an aircraft can’t continue flying for some reason. But it turns out that two people should still land the plane. The crew determines if there are any off-duty pilots on the flight, and if there are, they approach them to lend a hand. When there aren’t, our trusty flight attendants are trained step up and take care of business.

5. Generally Saving the Day in Emergencies

If you ever imagined that a crash would end up being an everyone-for-themselves situation, you were wrong. Flight attendants are the Boy Scouts of the skies in that they’re always prepared. As Smith explains, they go through survival training and act out “every imaginable life-or-death scenario under the sun.” If you need to survive a snowstorm, an avalanche, figure out how to eat on a desert island, or fight off a shark, stick with them – they’ve got you covered.