AIIMS doctors save life of toddler, who stopped breathing mid-air on Bengaluru-Delhi flight

NEW DELHI: A group of doctors from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, saved the life of a two-year-old toddler, who stopped breathing mid-air on board a Bengaluru-Delhi Vistara flight on Sunday.

The five senior resident doctors of AIIMS Delhi, traveling on the same flight, saved the toddler’s life by administering emergency medical treatment.

The incident took place on Sunday night when a group of five senior doctors of AIIMS was returning to Delhi after attending a medical event in Bengaluru. They were on board the Vistara flight UK-814.

The flight crew made an announcement of a distress before the aircraft was diverted to Nagpur. The distress call was regarding a two-year-old cyanotic female child, who was operated on for intracardiac repair and was unconscious and cyanosed.

Responding to the call, five doctors — Dr Navdeep Kaur, Dr Damandeep Singh, Dr Rishab Jain, Dr Oishika and Dr Avichala Taxak — started the emergency medical treatment and examined the child. Informing about the incident, AIIMS Delhi in a post on X, wrote, “The child was examined. His pulse was absent, extremities were cold, child was not breathing with cyanosed lips and fingers.”

“On air- Immediate CPR was started with limited resources, using skilled work and active management by the team. Successfully IV canulla was placed, the oropharyngeal airway was put and an emergency response was initiated by whole team of residents on board- and the baby for brought to ROSC- return of circulation”, the post read further.

It was complicated by another cardiac arrest for which an AED was used. For 45 minutes, the baby was resuscitated, and the flight was routed to Nagpur. On reaching Nagpur, the child was handed over in “stable hemodynamic” to the paediatrician (ANI).