Dr. Max Z. Cahan, 82, a retired Waukegan physician, had a moment of anxiety and fame in 1970 when an El Al plane on which he was aboard was nearly hijacked.
A resident of Pembroke Pines, Fla., he died Wednesday in the Universal Medical Center in Plantation, Fla.
Dr. Cahan, who was a pharmacist before becoming a physician, immigrated to the U.S. from Ukraine when he was a child. His father, Jacob, was a junk dealer on the West Side of Chicago. Two brothers, Dr. Meyer and Dr. Aaron, also practiced medicine in the Chicago area.
Dr. Cahan graduated from Chicago Medical School, had a practice in Waukegan and was on the staff of St. Therese Hospital in Waukegan. At one point, he had the distinction of having delivered more babies there than any other doctor.
During World War II, he served in France and Germany and was in charge of a military hospital.
In 1970, while returning from visiting their son in Israel, he and his wife, Ida, were aboard an El Al flight over the English Channel when the sound of shots indicated a hijacking. The plane started to dive and children began to scream. Dr. Cahan volunteered his services as a doctor in the cabin, where the attempt to hijack the plane had been made. One of the hijackers was dying on the floor. Another was tied down. A stewardess had been shot in an ear and the stomach. Dr. Cahan gave her a shot of morphine and also tended to a passenger who had been hit on the head while subduing a hijacker.
Survivors include his wife, Ada; a son, Shmuel Ben Menachem; a daughter, Louisa; and a sister.
Services were held Friday.
