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| 22-day-old Abdur Rehman. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta |
A 22-day-old baby with a congenital heart disease fell seriously ill mid-air, forcing a Jet Airways flight to return to Calcutta on Monday.
The Calcutta-Hyderabad-Bangalore flight took off at 2.15pm. Soon after, the condition of Abdur Rehman, who was being taken to Bangalore for treatment, worsened.
His father Abu Sayem and mother Maksuda Akhtar, residents of Khilgaon, in Dhaka, reached Calcutta on Monday morning on a GMG airline flight with their son.
“Abdur was very ill since we left home,” said Sayem. They were scheduled to take the Air Sahara flight to Bangalore at 10.30am. After it got delayed, the family contacted the airline officials, who got them seats on the Jet Airways flight.
“Within half an hour of take-off, the condition of my son started deteriorating,” recounted Sayem. The baby started gasping for breath and his lips turned blue. “His mother started crying. I was feeling helpless,” said Sayem.
He screamed for help. The cabin crew rushed in and put the baby on oxygen support. The pilot contacted the airport and said he was returning, according to a Jet official.
The flight returned at 3.27pm and Abdur was rushed from the aircraft to the terminal building in an ambulance, which was waiting at the runway bay with a doctor inside.
The doctor said the baby’s condition was critical and suggested immediate hospitalisation. The flight, meanwhile, took off at 3.37pm.
Abdur was taken to a nursing home near the airport and later shifted to Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, where he was kept at the intensive therapy unit.
“He is suffering from a disease called transposition of great arteries,” said Biswajit Bandyopadhyay, paediatric cardiologist at the hospital. Abdur was put on oxygen support and his condition was being stabilised before a surgery.