Indian American doctor came up with a jerry-rigged device that would deliver both oxygen and medication.
An Indian American doctor saved the life of a toddler during a transatlantic flight by making device that helped the boy who suffered an asthma attack in breathing.
Dr Khurshid Guru, director of Robotic Surgery at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in New York, created a makeshift inhaler using a cup and a bottle to help the 2-year-old, reported ABC News.
The incident happened on September 18 when Guru was aboard the Air Canada flight from Spain to the US.
The toddler’s parents had accidentally packed his asthma medication in checked luggage and the boy was crying and short of breath.
“The child had developed a cold. We were three or four hours into the flight. I think the cold and popping of the ears and crying. He got worse,” Guru was reported as saying.
https://twitter.com/KhurshidGuru/status/644857926469976064
The child’s oxygen level was dipping down to a dangerously low level – about 87 or 88 percent. The child needed oxygen but also asthma medication, but the plane only had an adult inhaler on board.
Then Guru came up with a jerry-rigged device similar to a nebulizer that would deliver both oxygen and asthma medication to the crying child.
The surgeon cut up a water bottle and added oxygen to one end and the adult inhaler through a small hole in the bottle. That way the oxygen and medication could be delivered through the bottle’s opening directly to the child, the report said.
“As the bottle went near to the child’s face, he pushed it away. I got a water cup and made a hole in the bottle and focused it to his face … told [the parents] to keep it there. Within about half an hour and two treatments he was sounding much better,” Guru said.
After the unusual treatment, the child’s oxygen level was around 94 or 95 percent.
“When I was landing, I checked the child and he was playing with the mom,” Guru added.