Woman gives birth to 29-week preemie aboard flight to Hawaii

HONOLULU — Dr. Dale Glenn has been asked to treat sick passengers before, but Wednesday’s excitement aboard a Delta Air Lines flight from Salt Lake City to Honolulu has set the bar a little higher for future airborne patients.

Lavina “Lavi” Mounga went into labor while on the flight at just 29 weeks, or nearly three months prematurely, WUSA reported.

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Fortunately, Glenn, a Hawai’i Pacific Health Family Medicine physician, and three neonatal intensive care nurses from North Kansas City Hospital were also on the plane. The three nurses were identified by KHON as Lani Bamfield, Amanda Beeding and Mimi Ho.

“I don’t know how a patient gets so lucky as to have three neonatal intensive care nurses onboard the same flight when she is in emergency labor, but that was the situation we were in,” Glenn stated in a news release issued by Hawai’i Pacific Health. “Everybody jumped in together, and everyone helped out.”

According to WUSA, Glenn relied on “previous wilderness medical training” to help deliver Baby Raymond on the aircraft, noting he and the nurses used shoelaces to cut the umbilical cord, made baby warmers out of bottles that were microwaved and used an Apple Watch to measure the baby’s heart rate.

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The unexpected delivery was also captured on TikTok by a fellow passenger, who recorded the captain’s announcement that a child had been born on the flight, as well as the emergency medical technicians boarding the plane shortly after it landed to help mother and son, who are both doing well, the TV station reported.

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Cox Media Group