A resident of the Hawaiian Islands pulled out a lucky ticket by boarding the same plane with a team of doctors of exactly the specialty that she needed most.
Recently, an emergency situation occurred on board a plane en route from Salt Lake City to Honolulu. One of the passengers, Lavinia Mounga, who was returning home from a family vacation, began to give birth as soon as the aircraft managed to gain altitude. The situation was complicated by the fact that the woman did not know about her pregnancy and could not even approximately determine its term.
Lavigne was getting worse all the time. The flight attendant on the speakerphone asked if there was a doctor among the passengers. By a happy coincidence, several specialists from the Hawaii Pacific Health Medical Center and the North Kansas City Hospital were on board at once – and just the specialty that was especially needed by the woman in labor.
A team of three neonatal nurses headed by therapist Dale Glenn took over the case. Soon baby Raymond was born. The boy was born much prematurely – at about 29 weeks of his development. There was no necessary equipment, but Dr. Glenn and the nurses did everything possible to stabilize the newborn during the flight, which lasted three hours. Everything that was at hand went into action – someone’s shoelaces, bottles of warm water, a heart monitor on a smartwatch. Thanks to the work of professionals, Raymond flew to Hawaii alive.
“It was a real team effort. Everyone gathered and started helping each other,” Dr. Glenn commented on the situation.
One of the passengers – Julia Hansen – filmed the whole process on video. Later, she posted a video on TikTok, in which paramedics take Lavigne and her son out of the plane, and people applaud her and the wonderful professionals with whom she was lucky to fly on the same flight. By this time, more than 15 million users around the world had already watched the video with unique frames.
After landing, the young mother and her newborn were taken to Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children. Raymond was placed in the neonatal intensive care unit. As it became known later, he is already on the mend.
