His first in 20 years: local doctor delivers baby on airplane

A flight from Europe arrived in Boston with an extra passenger on Wednesday after a woman on board gave birth somewhere over Canada.

And a Minnesota doctor helped with the delivery.

Dr. Natarajan Raman, a radiology oncologist from Minneapolis, helped another doctor on board the flight with the delivery.

"The amazing part of clinical medicine, is it's like riding a bike, once you learn it, you never forget it," he said, shortly after acknowledging the "last time I delivered a baby was in 1988 in my intern year of obstetrics."

Northwest Flight 59 landed in Boston about 9:30 Twin Cities time Wednesday morning.

The mother was eight and a  half months pregnant when she went into labor two hours out of Boston.

The flight crew asked the passengers if there was a doctor on board, and as the flight approached Boston from Canada, Raman and Dr. Paresh Thakker went to work.

The child's head had already emerged, and the rest of the delivery went "perfectly," according to Dr. Raman. "Northwest Airlines had all of the equipment we needed to be there, and even though we didn't have a labor room delivery set up, it was just perfect," Raman said. They handed the baby to its mother and everyone on board reportedly burst into cheers.

90 minutes later, they were on the ground and the baby was whisked away to the hospital. She weighed six and a half pounds, and already has a name: Sasha.

The child will reportedly be considered a Canadian citizen, because she was born over Canadian airspace.

Meantime, Raman's colleagues are already boasting of his heroic flight.

"He's very kind, very calm, very competent. He's a good person to have come in and pitch in," said Dr. Scott Davies, Chief of Medicine at HCMC.

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