Doctor sucks urine out of 70-year-old man's bladder using his mouth during mid-air emergency to save his life
When an elderly passenger on a flight was unable to urinate the normal way, a Chinese doctor onboard jumped into action by helping suck 800 milliliters of the man's urine using his mouth.
The 55-year-old savior, Dr. Zhang Hong, was on a 14-hour-long China Southern Airlines' flight CZ399 from Guangzhou to New York on Tuesday, November 19, when an unidentified 70-year-old passenger started having trouble with his bladder.
His wife informed flight attendants that her husband had become emotionally unstable and was sweating profusely, the air carrier explained in a social media article. The plane's crew immediately arranged for a "temporary ambulance bed" where the man was placed.
After hearing the announcement calling for available doctors onboard, Zhang, an interventional vascular surgeon at the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University (Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Hospital), along with a vascular surgeon from the People's Hospital of Hainan Province, came over and immediately examined the man.
Both of them concluded that if the urine in his bladder was not taken out immediately, his bladder would rupture. A puncture and urine absorption device was made using a catheter on a portable oxygen cylinder mask, a syringe needle, a bottled milk straw, and tape to extract the liquid waste from inside the man's bladder.
However, the device could not work properly due to the limited space inside the aircraft. "Because the cabin space is limited, the possibility of erecting the device to a high place is small, the needle is too sharp, and the urine in the bladder of the elderly cannot be automatically drained due to the pressure difference," the report stated.
As everyone on the place pondered on the next best course of action, Zhang decided that he was going to use his mouth to suck out urine through the tube, which would control the speed and intensity of urine discharge.
He asked one of the crew members for a plastic cup and got to work. Forty minutes later, the pressure in the man's bladder had been relieved and the doctor had saved his life.
After the aircraft landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the cabin crew also assisted the patient to seek further medical attention.
When asked about his heroic action, Zhang said: "We really did not have any other solutions at the time, [and I] did not think that much. [I] just wanted to help him release the urine stuck in his bladder. Saving people is the fundamental duty of a doctor."