Lavinia “Lavi” Mounga was flying from Salt Lake City to Honolulu on a Delta flight in May of 2021 when something didn’t feel quite right.
Suddenly, the dreaded “Is there a doctor on board?” page rang out over the airplane’s speakers. Lucky for Mounga, there were plenty.
Surprise!
It turns out that the Mounga was going into labor. But the real kicker was that she had no idea she was pregnant!
Lucky for her, she was on a flight carrying Hawaii Pacific Health Family Medicine Physician Dr. Dale Glenn and North Kansas City Hospital NICU Nurses Lani Bamfield, Amanda Beeding, and Mimi Ho.
“About halfway through the flight, there was an emergency call, and I’ve experienced this before and usually they’re pretty clear asking if there is a doctor on board,” Dr. Glenn said in a release from Hawaii Pacific Health. . “This call was not like this and it was fairly urgent. I let the flight attendant know that I’m a physician and she said we have a woman having a baby, so I hurried over to see what I could do.”
Baby on board
By the time Dr. Glenn got to Mounga, she had already given birth. Luckily, the NICU nurses were by her and her newborn son Raymond’s side. Raymond was born at just 29 weeks old.
“That definitely means something to us because we work in the NICU,” said Ho.
It’s pretty incredible to have 3 nurses on board who are trained to care for premies. According to PEOPLE, they were able to make up for a lack of medical tools with some ingenuity.
Winging it
Because the group didn’t have the usual tools they do in the hospital, Glenn relied on his wilderness medical training. The team used shoelaces to tie and cut through the umbilical cord, they made baby warmers out of microwaved bottles, and even used an Apple watch to measure his heart rate.
Everyone still had 3 hours ahead of them on the plane before they could get Raymond and his mother to the hospital.
“I don’t know how a patient gets so lucky as to have three neonatal intensive care nurses onboard the same flight when she is in emergency labor, but that was the situation we were in,” said Glenn. “The great thing about this was the teamwork. Everybody jumped in together and everyone helped out.”
High drama
And the dramatic flight really did require a team.
“Basically, you need somebody to watch the mom too because we have two patients, not just one. So someone’s got to help cut the cord, someone’s got to help deliver the placenta, we’ve got to check vital signs on mom. Meanwhile we’re trying to resuscitate baby, make sure baby’s breathing, get baby warmed up. That’s a lot of work to do, and we’re all trying to work in a very small, confined space in an airplane, which is pretty challenging,” said Glenn.
As soon as the plane landed, an ambulance was waiting to take mother and son to Kapiolani Medical Center.
All 4 of the medical professionals even got a chance to visit Mounga later in the week.
“We all just teared up. She called us family and said we’re all his aunties, and it was so great to see them,” said Ho.
Going viral
After a fellow passenger recorded the ruckus that followed and posted it to TikTok, the story went viral.
Now, Mounga’s family is trying to raise money via GoFundMe to not only ensure the surprise new mother can cover the medical bills but get back home with her son to Utah after he’s strong enough to leave the NICU. So far, they’ve raised roughly half of their $20,000 goal.
The rest of Raymond Kaimana Wade Kobe Lavaki Mounga’s family can’t wait to meet him.
Be sure to scroll down to see news footage about the dramatic in-flight birth.
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