Doctor helps deliver baby on flight

 

CLEVELAND, OH — Dr. Sij Hemal, second-year Indian American urology resident at Cleveland Clinic’s Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, helped deliver a baby on December 17 when a passenger on the New York-bound flight went into labor.

Toyin Ogundipe, a banker who resides in both the United Kingdom and Nigeria, went into labor midway through the flight as the flight was over the southern coast of Greenland.

In lieu of making an emergency landing, Dr Hemal (27) volunteered to help Ogundipe and instructed the pilot to stay the course to the JFK International Airport in New York.

The patient was moved to the roomier first-class section where the doctor used instruments and supplies in the flight’s scanty medical kit to routinely check her vital signs, including blood pressure, oxygen rate and pulse.

Within the course of an hour, Ogundipe’s contractions accelerated; they occurred seven, then five and finally two minutes apart.

After about a half hour of pushing, Ogundipe gave birth to a boy, whom she named Jake. Hemal safely removed the placenta, used a surgical clamp (and a shoestring) to tie off the umbilical cord, and then cut it off with a pair of scissors.

Upon arrival at JFK, Ogundipe, Jake and the mother’s 4-year-old daughter Amy were whisked away by ambulance to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, just four miles from the airport.