A British doctor on board a Wizz Air flight from Jordan to London helped deliver a baby mid-air before the jet was forced to land in Italy.
Hassan Khan, 28, revealed he was flying home from a holiday in Amman on Saturday morning when the flight crew called for a doctor.
According to the doctor working at Basildon Hospital, the expectant mother was lying on the floor outside the cockpit after her water broke.
Hassan stepped aside and said the Jordanian woman did not speak English and another passenger had to translate during the delivery.
“I told the flight attendants what equipment I needed – which would include an oxygen mask, an umbilical cord clamp and a stethoscope – which of course they didn’t have on a plane,” Hassan told the BBC.
Hassan Khan, 28, helped deliver a seven-month-old baby after a Jordanian passenger’s water broke on a flight from Jordan to London
The four-year-old doctor (pictured third from left) works at Basildon Hospital, Essex, and fortunately had experience in neonatal resuscitation
He revealed he had only used towels during the ‘miraculous’ birth of the baby girl.
The doctor of four years, who fortunately had experience in resuscitating newborns, said he also managed to calm the panicked mother after assuring her through the translator that he had worked with newborns before.
‘People said it was miraculous. I only realized how significant it was after I had the chance to process it all,’ he explained.
After the baby chaos, the Wizz Air flight was diverted to Brindisi Airport in southern Italy so that the 38-year-old mother and her baby could be taken to Perrino Hospital.
Hassan joked that he was late for his shift because of the unexpected diversion, but his employers were impressed by his quick thinking and wanted the full update.
“My consultant congratulated me and said it was a really good job,” he said.
According to a report from the online newspaper, Openthe baby was born only seven months old.
Wizz Air jet made emergency landing in Italy so mother and baby could go to hospital (via Shutterstock)
The hero doctor said the woman’s family updated him from the hospital and revealed that thanks to his help, both her and her baby were in good condition.
The parents of the little girl, whom they named Sama, told the local Italian newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno that she didn’t even need an incubator,’ despite being two months premature.
But this is not the first time a newborn has been born in the clouds.
Last May, 17-year-old Abigail Amoretti went into labor during a flight from Managua, Nicaragua, to Miami.
The newborn baby was breathing after a team of three doctors assisted with the delivery, but luckily was able to breathe on his own after about three minutes of emergency CPR.
In October 2021, Kendria Rhoden, 21, gave birth to her son on a flight to the Dominican Republic.
The healthcare worker from Connecticut was left in shock when her waters broke and revealed she wasn’t expecting to be brith until the end of the month.
Medical support company MedAire reports that in-flight births occur in about one in every 26 million passengers.
Dr. Paulo Alves, the company’s global medical director, said Condé Nast Traveler in January: ‘Birth in flight is very, very rare and when you review the cases, they were unexpected – they were premature babies.
He added that giving birth in the air comes with its own challenges.
‘It is not the best place for you to have your child, for many reasons. Partly, the air is thinner, so it is harder for the child to breathe. It’s like giving birth to a premature baby in Mexico City, height wise’.
In addition to this, the likelihood of specialists being present to assist with the birth is extremely low, meaning that complicated procedures such as C-sections are almost impossible to perform, even though they are necessary for the safety of the mother and hers. baby.
