Thursday, April 24, 2014

Half-a-world flight without skull bone

Kolkata: When 64-year-old Ivan Lin Chung, a Canadian citizen of Chinese origin, was wheeled into a private hospital in Kolkata last February, his right side was paralyzed and his speech had been affected by a clot in the brain. Doctors rated his chances of survival at less than 50%. Removing a skull bone was the only option left to them. They not only operated on him successfully but accompanied him in his 32-hour journey on connecting flights to hand him over to his family members in Toronto.
Ivan, who was on his way back home after a trip to China, had stopped over in Kolkata to spend the Chinese New Year with relatives. During a two-month stay at the hospital, he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, forcing doctors to remove his skull bone to ease the pressure on the brain. On April 13, Ivan — a doctor himself — left the city on a Jet Airways flight for Mumbai, en route to Brussels from where he flew business class to his home in Toronto, accompanied by a doctor and a nurse from the hospital. He made the journey lying on a stretcher, semi-conscious and without his skull bone, even as a battery-operated monitor tracked his vital parameters.
24/04/14 Prithvijit Mitra/Times of India
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