This will certainly be a fun story to share for many birthdays to come. A woman gave birth to her child on a Delta flight headed to Portland, Oregon, 30 minutes before it landed on Friday, April 24.
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What Happened On the Delta Flight?
According to the New York Post, Delta flight 478 was en route to Portland, Oregon, from Atlanta on Friday.
Suddenly, a passenger went into labor. Thankfully for the expectant mother, there was a doctor and two nurses on the flight. They, along with the flight attendants, began working together to deliver the baby.
"It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, actually," said Oregon EMT Tina Fritz.
Fritz and her co-worker, Caarin Powell, had to make do with the limited supplies available on the Delta flight.
"I asked for an OB kit, which they did not have," said Fritz. "I asked for blankets, which they did not have. So I was like, okay, we need to get blankets from passengers. I need some shoestrings. So the flight attendant took his shoestring out, cut it for us."
The Experience Was "Pretty Wild" for Passengers
The baby came quickly, about half an hour before the Delta flight landed in Portland.
"I cut the cord, and we wrapped her up, and they're like, the plane is touching down, so Kaarin grab the seat. And I grabbed the seat. We didn't get anything buckled, and we just landed," said Fritz. "Then, we gave baby back to mom, and we taxied in, so the whole plane cheered for mom. It was great."
The other passengers also helped, with one commenting that it "was pretty wild just to see it all happen." Jess Cushenberry from Atlanta shared her blanket with the crew while they worked to deliver the baby.
"I actually didn't know what was going on at first. And then somehow my seatmate found out that there was a baby being born," she said.
Both mother and baby were reported to be in "stable condition," according to the Port of Portland.
"We extend our sincere thanks to the crew and medical volunteers on board who stepped in to provide care to a customer onboard prior to landing in Portland," said Delta spokesperson Sabrina Cole. "The health and safety of our customers is always our top priority, and we wish the new family all the best."
This was a Boeing 717, the last one was manufactured in 2006. It was originally a McDonnell Douglas MD-95 before the merger.
I haven't seen the reports on this specific incident, yet, but engine fires are mechanical issues: either something inside the engine that doesn't belong there, or poor maintenance practices, or both. Wing tips striking the ground may be a combination of weather (wind, visibility) and/ or just incompetent piloting. This is something that just wasn't occurring, before 2 things happened, on a regular basis as it is now: late '60s "Affirmative Action" hiring (morphed into DEI); and the deregulation of airlines in the US in the early '80s. When airlines maintained their own planes with their own states of mechanics, there was a cohesive sense of company "pride" and team work, where everyone was part of moving planes and people safely from point A to point B together. Incompetent people got weeded out quickly, because they reflected poorly on the team, which no one wanted. That concept and feeling vanished, between the 2 factors I named. It's absence is "felt" from manufacturing clear through all aspects of the industry today.