by JASON WHITELY
Original Story: http://www.wfaa.com/news/AA-flight-attendant-helps-deliver-baby-in-737-96702679.html
FORT LAUDERDALE - "My new slogan is going to be, "Coffee? Tea? Deliver your baby?," quipped Patricia Sund, an American Airlines flight attendant.
Patricia Sund helped two doctors deliver a baby boy in the last row of seats, on Friday, June 11, as they flew from Port-au-Prince, Haiti to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
A Boeing 737 is the stage for this performance yet being very much lacking for space to deliver a baby but anything is possible when the flight attendants are put to the test of their training and cool heads during a situation.
"It took quite a bit of improvisation to figure out a way to position the mother, the medical kit, two doctors, the equipment needed and a way to pass what was needed in-between and over the seats to the attending physicians in order to make this delivery a successful one," Sund said.
Flight 2288 was about 35 minutes from landing in (KFLL) Fort Lauderdale when an extra passenger was announced on the flight and added to the passenger manifest according to American Airlines.
"Watching that baby being born and having him placed in my arms 30 seconds after he was born was an incredibly raw and emotional moment for me," Sund reflected. "It will remain one of the highlights of my Flight Service career. It also most likely makes this crew the newest members of a very small club of flight attendants who have assisted with the birth of a child inflight."
American Airlines said the baby boy was born healthy.
This is a fine example of what flight attendants are trained to do and what so many passengers take for granted. So the next time a passenger thinks that flight attendants are "glorified sky waitresses" hopefully they will remember hearing about this beautiful incident over the skies of the Atlantic and know that the flight attendants are there for more important things than passing out peanuts and opening cans of Coke!
No comments:
Post a Comment