AN overseas Filipino worker (OFW) delivered a baby boy aboard a Philippine Airlines (PAL) plane on a repatriation flight last June 6, 2020.
The baby was born while the A330-340 was cruising over Bengal Bay at 37,000 feet, flying from Dubai to Manila with hundreds of migrant Filipino workers aboard.
PAL spokesperson Cielo Villaluna said the cabin crew was alerted by a call from another migrant worker seated beside the pregnant woman.
Flight purser Daisy Castellano came to the rescue and saw to it that the mother is safely seated and not in anyway inconvenienced. It was her first time to lend a helping hand to a mother about to give birth.
Castellano was assisted by second officer Fidel Guzman Ala, who, using a satellite phone while talking to a doctor on the ground, relayed step-by-step instructions on how to cut the umbilical cord of a newborn.
Villaluna credited the cabin crew’s team effort for the “successful delivery of the baby boy with flying colors.”
She added, “Both the baby boy and the mother were all well and healthy, it was truly a miracle of life in the skies.”
According to Villaluna, flight attendants who also assisted at the delivery were Joan Rivera, Joy Reyes-Lobo, Kelly Cordis Lomuntad, Marie Rose Villaroman Coronel, Nancy Sarmento Montinola, and flight stewards Dino Antigua Karganilla, Ronnie Mendoza and Jose Madarang.
Pilot-in-command Capt. Mark Palomares opted to land at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Thailand “so that the mother and son would be provided with their immediate medical needs,” Villaluna said.
“Although we see flight attendants serving food and beverage, performing safety demos, and attending to passenger needs, their primary duty is actually to ensure the safety and security of all passengers,” she pointed out
Villanueva said a good part of the cabin crew’s training program provided by airlines “is centered on safety and security of the passengers during flight.”
She said PAL is known for its intensive and extremely difficult training program, where flight attendants are fully trained to deal with different inflight medical emergency situations, “especially when there are no doctors on board.”
Villaluna said that it was PAL’s #BuongPusongAlaga, focus, and teamwork that played out to be the winning formula, enabling their crew to safely and successfully bring the baby boy to this world.
She said the boy was named Ali, meaning “elevated” or most high in Arabic.
Which should be a fitting name for someone who came to this world at 37,000 feet high, in one of the oldest and safest airlines in the sky.
Image credits: Ninlawan Donlakkham | Dreamstime.com
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