A 69-year-old doctor from Mysuru, who was travelling from Paris to Bengaluru, on board an Air France flight found himself in an unexpected situation when he was pressed into service after an elderly man on board fell unconscious.
Prabhulingaswamy Sanganalmath, a retired government physician, who runs a family clinic at Kuvempunagar in the city, responded to the cabin crew's call for medical assistance for the man who fell unconscious. "Initially, no one came forward. So I decided to help and I was assisted by a nurse on the flight," says Prabhulingaswamy, speaking to TNM from Mysuru. The call came two hours after the flight took off from Paris.
The incident occurred on November 13 and the airline has thanked the doctor and given him a gift voucher of 100 euros.
"There was no pulse, no heartbeat and no respiration and he was not responding even to deep stimuli. We started cardiac massage briskly for five minutes. In the meantime, the nurse rubbed his feet to increase the temperature. He gave a feeble response and at this point, we thought it might be a syncopal episode," says Prabhulingaswamy.
The doctor then began oxygen supplemented resuscitation of the patient following which he began to respond to the treatment.The patient remained under observation until the flight landed in Bengaluru and he was then taken to the airport clinic in a wheelchair.
"At this point, I was worried for a moment when the flight captain asked me for my name and address fearing I had broken international litigation. But he told me it was to maintain records and that the flight crew was grateful for my help. I was also given a 100 euros voucher as a token of appreciation," he adds.
Prabhulingaswamy currently resides in Mysuru where he runs a family clinic. He was previously district surgeon and also worked as Deputy Medical Superintendent at Apollo Hospital in Mysuru. He was in the USA visiting his daughter and was returning to Bengaluru via Paris when he was called to help the man.