Imagine a baby being delivered on a flight! The experience sounds harrowing, doesn’t it?
Well, on a recent flight on China Air from Taiwan to Los Angeles, a pregnant passenger went into early labor. Fortunately, there was a physician from the University of California, Los Angeles, Dr. Angelica Zen, on board!
Dr. Zen was coming back from her honeymoon in Bali when flight attendants were asking for the assistance of any medical professionals. Even though this is not her expertise, she was willing to help ( speaking Mandarin Chinese helped so she could communicate with the mother).
“My training is in internal medicine pediatrics so we do adults and kids but really no pregnant woman at all, so since my training we haven’t done much OBGYN,” said Zen to abc7. “I was a little bit nervous.”
Zen had never delivered a baby by herself, but she didn’t hesitate to help.
Meanwhile, instead of continuing to California, the captain changed course and headed to the nearest airport, which was Anchorage, Alaska, three hours away.
Zen speaks Mandarin and was able to talk to the mother as well.
“I had very limited supplies with me and it was very difficult,” said Zen. “We had to work under very constrained circumstances.”
She said the flight attendants were like her stand-in nurses, and most of the passengers were asleep until the cabin lights came on for the delivery.
The Baby girl was born safely and they had a emergency landing in Anchorage, AK. Now, the real question, what would be baby’s citizenship?
