Birmingham doctor from Queen Elizabeth Hospital saves man’s life while on flight from London to India

A Birmingham doctor saved the life of a passenger who almost died twice during a ten-hour flight from the UK to India.

Dr Vishwaraj Vemala, a consultant hepatologist who works Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, was flying from London to India to take his mum back to their home town of Bangalore, when cabin crew on board flight AI128 frantically started calling for a doctor as a passenger went into cardiac arrest.

A 43-year-old man had collapsed in the aisle of the airplane and went into cardiac arrest. With the help of the cabin crew, Dr Vemala attended to the passenger, who at the time did not have a pulse and was not breathing, and attempted to resuscitate him.

It took the doctor an hour of resuscitation before he was able to get him back. Dr Vemala said: “During this time, I asked the cabin crew on board if they had any medication.

“Luckily, they had an emergency kit, which to my utter surprise, included resuscitative medication to enable life support. Apart from oxygen and an automated external defibrillator, there was no other equipment on board to monitor how he was doing.”

After asking the other passengers on board, Dr Vemala was also able to get his hands on a heart-rate monitor, blood pressure machine, pulse oximeter and glucose meter to keep an eye on the patient’s vital signs.

Man suffered second cardiac arrest

While speaking with Dr Vemala, the passenger went into cardiac arrest for a second time. This time it took longer to resuscitate him.

Dr Vemala said: “In total, he was without a good pulse or decent blood pressure for nearly two hours of the flight, alongside the cabin crew, we were trying to keep him alive for five hours in total. It was extremely scary for us all, especially the other passengers, and it was quite emotional.”

Concerned for the passenger’s chance for survival, Dr Vemala and the pilot tried to get permission to land at the nearest airfield in Pakistan, but their requests were denied. Instead, they were able to arrange for landing at Mumbai Airport in India, where emergency crews were waiting for them on the ground.

The doctor said: “The patient thanked me with tears in his eyes. He said: ‘I am forever indebted to you for saving my life’. This was indeed a moment that I will remember for rest of my life.”