Summary
- A Vistara flight had to divert to Nagpur due to a medical emergency when a 2-year-old girl stopped breathing. Doctors on the plane immediately treated her.
- The girl had a heart defect from birth and had undergone previous treatment. The doctors successfully resuscitated her and handed her over to a pediatrician upon landing.
- The recent incident comes after a few other medical emergencies on flights in India this month.
A medical emergency forced a Vistara flight to divert to Nagpur when a child onboard became critically ill. Thankfully, a group of doctors on the aircraft immediately treated the child, who was then handed over to a pediatrician upon landing.
Child stops breathing on a flight
On August 27th, a Vistara flight operating from Bengaluru to Delhi faced a medical emergency when a 2-year-old girl stopped breathing. Thankfully, the plane was also carrying senior doctors from New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) who were returning from a medical event in Bengaluru. The aircraft was eventually diverted to Nagpur.
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The doctors responded to the crew’s distress call and immediately started attending to the child, who had stopped breathing. According to a statement released by AIIMS, the 2-year-old was a cyanotic female child, meaning she had a heart defect from birth and had also undergone treatment for it.
When she was examined, her pulse was absent, extremities were cold, there was no breathing, and she had cyanosed lips and fingers. The team immediately started CPR with limited resources. AIIMS further stated,
“Successfully IV canulla was placed, oropharyngeal airway was put and emergency response was initiated by whole team of residents on board- and the baby for brought to ROSC- return of circulation.
“It was complicated by another cardiac arrest for which an AED was used. For 45 mins, baby was resuscitated and flight was routed to Nagpur. On reaching Nagpur, child was handed over in stable hemodynamic to the pediatrician.”
Recent medical emergencies
There have been a few medical emergencies this month on flights in India or those originating from the country. On August 16th, a senior pilot traveling on a Qatar Airways flight from India fell ill and passed away on the plane.
On August 17th, an elderly passenger who suffered from chronic illnesses fell critically ill and started vomiting blood on an IndiGo flight. Unfortunately, he, too, could not be saved.
On August 25th, a Jabalpur-bound Alliance Air flight took off from New Delhi but had to be diverted to Jaipur after a passenger’s blood pressure started dropping. An emergency landing was performed, and the passenger was offloaded and taken to a hospital in Jaipur.
Airline protocols
Medical emergencies on flights, although uncommon, do happen from time to time. Depending upon the severity of the situation, there are various protocols in place for such cases. According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the most common types of emergencies on a flight are nausea, fainting, and respiratory problems.
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Airlines need to have procedures in place to deal with such situations, and cabin crew members are trained to administer first aid and have some basic resources onboard, such as bandages and cold packs. But they are not a replacement for a doctor, which is why depending upon the situation, they have to take a quick call on whether to divert a flight or treat the affected passenger onboard.
Those interested in finding out more about what happens during a medical emergency on a flight can read Simple Flying's detailed write-up.
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