Doctor as god: This Indian born helps in delivery of pregnant woman on flight

Someone has rightly said that doctors are the second God on our planet. This statement has been proved true by an Indian born American doctor who helped a woman to give birth to a baby boy on a boarded flight which was nearly 35,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean route to the United States of America from New Delhi.

The name of this second God is Dr Sij Hemal, a 27-year-old second-year urology resident doctor, who was on the Paris to New York segment of his daytime journey on 17 December. He was returning after attending his friend's wedding, in a flight he was accompanied by a paediatrician, who was on the next seat to him. They were asked to help a passenger who had gone to a labour pain. The plane was skirting the southern coast of Greenland as the mother, 41-year-old banker Toyin Ogundipe, called for assistance, the Cleveland Clinic said in a press release.


As landing was not possible in the mid-way as it required two-hour diversion to a US military in the Azore Islands. Due to this, Dr Sij controlled the situation and asked the pilot to continue flying to New York which was 4 hours away. The two doctors on the flight, Dr Hemal & Dr Susan Shepherd, received the medical kit to check the woman's blood pressure, oxygen rate and pulse. After observing the woman they decided to deliver the baby on the flight.

Finally, they get success in doing the woman delivery. She gave a birth to a boy. Dr Hemal 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.