Chinese surgeons use straws to drain man’s bladder in mid-flight medical emergency
- Doctors improvise with tape and oxygen mask tubing to make device to save patient on plane from Guangzhou to New York
- The man was suffering with an enlarged prostate and showing signs of shock
Two Chinese surgeons rigged straws, a syringe needle and tubing from an oxygen mask together with tape to perform a life-saving emergency procedure on a flight from southern China to New York on Tuesday, according to mainland media reports.
Surgeons Zhang Hong, from the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University in Guangzhou, and Xiao Zhanxiang, from Hainan Provincial People’s Hospital in Haikou, responded to a call for medical assistance about 10 hours into the flight, the Guangzhou-based New Express reported on Thursday.
An elderly man was sweating, had a swollen belly and had previously been diagnosed with an enlarged prostate.
Zhang said the man was already showing signs of shock and they estimated that there was about a litre of urine trapped in his bladder.
With six hours of the flight to go, they had to act.