{"id":8390,"date":"2015-10-15T21:27:26","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T04:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/doctor-delivers-baby-on-flight\/"},"modified":"2015-10-15T21:27:26","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T04:27:26","slug":"doctor-delivers-baby-on-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/doctor-delivers-baby-on-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor delivers baby on flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES<\/strong> \u2014 It was a honeymoon that Dr. Angelica Zen likely won\u2019t ever forget, and not just because of the romantic Bali vacation.<\/p>\n

On her way home to Los Angeles last week, the UCLA physician made her first unassisted delivery of a newborn baby when a passenger suddenly went into labor over the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

The China Air flight, which had departed from Taiwan, was diverted to Alaska. Mother and newborn daughter left for a hospital, and the flight continued on to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the baby came out healthy, I was just very relieved,\u201d Zen, back at work at UCLA on Thursday, said laughing.<\/p>\n

The fourth-year resident had previously delivered two infants, both under the supervision of more experienced doctors.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually I see adult patients, older patients and pediatric kids,\u201d she said, adding this was \u201cdefinitely outside of my job description.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zen had been trying to catch a little sleep toward the end of her 14-hour connecting flight from Bali last week when she heard an announcement asking if there was a doctor or nurse on board.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey initially told me it was just a lady having some abdominal pain, so I thought it was going to be something simple,\u201d she told The Associated Press. \u201cBut when I saw her she was, like, very pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman was seated in the plane\u2019s first-class section, where the desks made it impossible to work, so Zen had her moved to the main cabin and placed on the floor. The flight attendants quickly pitched in, providing towels, blankets and makeshift instruments as fellow passengers recorded videos with their phones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe baby got delivered, and everybody applauded,\u201d said passenger Edmund Chen, who filmed part of the delivery from his seat one row behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really like to video other people, but this was just a once-in-a-lifetime thing, you know,\u201d he said. He added he was amazed that when, just like in the movies, the crew asked if there was a doctor on board and one stepped forward.<\/p>\n

Zen said her husband, an engineer, stood by ready to help, but she didn\u2019t ask him. \u201cI think he was more nervous than I was,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear if the birth, first reported by KABC-TV, occurred within a 12-mile radius of Alaska, which would make the baby a U.S. citizen.<\/p>\n

Airport officials wouldn\u2019t say how close the plane was to landing, but Zen noted it was making its approach when the baby arrived. \u201cIt was right when we were descending that the baby crowned,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 It was a honeymoon that Dr. Angelica Zen likely won\u2019t ever forget, and not just because of the romantic Bali vacation. On her way home to Los Angeles last week, the UCLA physician made her first unassisted delivery of a newborn baby when a passenger suddenly went into labor over the Pacific […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8390"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}