Baby on a plane: Dublin-based Filipino nurse helps fellow passenger give birth during flight

Lucky mom, lucky baby.

A Filipino nurse helped a woman give birth about 35,000 feet in the air while onboard a Qatar Airways flight bound for Manila on Tuesday.

The hero nurse is Francis Dominic Mendoza, 25, a Dublin-based overseas Filipino worker who was going home to the Philippines for a vacation, reported ABS-CBN News. The mother was a fellow Filipino who was 37 weeks pregnant and gave birth after the plane departed Doha and entered Thailand’s airspace.

The woman, who was traveling alone, went into labor at around 5am, reported The Philippine Daily Inquirer. Using a first aid kit and improvised tools, Mendoza and a flight attendant, who also has a nursing background, helped the woman give birth, reported Rappler. There were no doctors on board the plane.

“We wrapped the baby in a blanket and I monitored the mother’s vital signs using equipment from the plane’s first aid kit. I monitored her for signs of bleeding which is a concern after one gives birth,” Mendoza told Inquirer.

The plane’s pilot made an emergency landing in Bangkok at around 6:15am when Mendoza told him that while the passenger’s vital signs were stable, there was a risk that she would catch hypothermia due to the temperature on the plane. Upon arrival in Bangkok, the mother and her baby were brought to a hospital for treatment.

Qatar Airways promised to shoulder all of the woman’s medical expenses.

Naturally, the mother was very thankful for Mendoza’s efforts. A nursing graduate of the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos in Bacolod City, Mendoza said in a Facebook post that the experience left him happy and fulfilled.

Working as a nurse, he said, has always been his dream.

“This is my calling, this is what I want,” Mendoza told Rappler. “Many people think that what I did was a heroic act. But I only did what a nurse should do when they are in a situation like this.”

Read more Coconuts Manila articles here.