“Is there a doctor on the plane?”
This is what Toronto Muslim doctor Aisha Khatib heard while she was on Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Entebbe last month. A Ugandan worker returning home from Saudi Arabia was about to deliver her first child.
Khatib did not hesitate when make heard the voice on the intercom and decided to volunteer.
“Never thought I’d be delivering a baby on a flight! Thanks to the airline crew who helped support the birth of this Miracle in the air! Mom and baby are doing well and healthy!,” said Dr. Khatib, CBC reported.
Great Conditions
Once the baby was out on the seat, another passenger popped up beside Khatib and identified herself as a pediatrician with Médecins Sans Frontières.
With the mother in stable condition, the pediatrician handed the newborn back to Khatib.
“I said, ‘OK, well, congratulations! It’s a girl!’ And at that point, the entire plane erupted in clapping and cheering, and I was like, ‘Oh right. I’m on a plane,’” Khatib said.
“The best part is the mom named the baby after me … she named her Miracle Aisha.”
As a gift, Dr. Khatib gave Miracle Aisha the gold necklace that she was wearing with the name Aisha written in Arabic.
“I had a necklace on that had my name in Arabic on it, so I gave it to her as my namesake. So that she always remembers that she was delivered by a lady named Aisha, up in the air, [when] we were flying above the Nile,” she said.
“It’s pretty spectacular.”