By Andrew Adamides
WHEN Kenyan Grace Ndanyu left London for Nairobi as a passenger on a Gulf Air jet, little did she know that she was bringing with her not one but two stowaways who would make their presence felt just two hourse into the flight. She also didn’t plan on a two-month stay in sunny Cyprus.
Grace, 30, had been in London on an extended four and a half month visit to friends there, and on February 28 was travelling from Heathrow to Abu Dhabi on the first leg of her trip home. She was aware of her preganancy, but did not know she was carrying twins, and had had absolutely no ante-natal care whatsoever.
By an amazing stroke of luck, when her premature labour began at 35,000 feet, Grace couldn’t have been in better hands, as also on the flight were three paediatricians, a surgeon and a specialist in palliative care, all on their way to a Middle East medical conference.
“It was pure luck from the babies point of view that there were specialists on board who knew about small babies,” palliative care specialist Dr Halcyon Leonard told the Reuters news agency.
“I think they probably owe their lives to the fact that there were paediatricians on board. I don’t think I could have resucitated a baby that small and I am sure the air crew couldn’t have done.”
Leonard, from Kingston upon Thames, delivered them in the plane’s galley before handing the twins – Joseph and Lucia – over to the paediatricians who resucitated them.
One of the child specialists, Dr James Gould of Ipswich Hospital, said it took him 40 minutes to resucitate first-born Joseph in the plane’s tiny toilet.
“It wasn’t easy – particularly during landing when I had to hold onto the baby to stop him falling on the floor as well as holding the oxygen,” said Dr Gould, who had to use an oxygen system designed for a much larger child.
Lucia caused even more trouble by being a breech birth, he added.
At birth, the twins weighed just one kilogramme each, as they were a full three months premature. The flight was diverted to Larnaca and they were taken to the Makarios Hospital where they remain and are making good progress.
However, while the doctors have publicly criticised the equipment available on the plane, calling for better drugs, saline drips and surgical gloves, Grace has spent the intervening time since she left hospital holed up in the Excelsior Hotel, an oasis of seventies kitsch in 90s Nicosia, courtesy of Gulf Air.
Jobless Grace says she’s very grateful to the doctors for saving both her life and those of her babies, but is lonely and growing tired of the media frenzy surrounding her. Her boyfriend, the father of the twins, also called Joseph, is a school caretaker and cannot afford to travel to Cyprus.
Short of cash, ordinary, genuine Grace currently spends her days visiting the twins in the mornings, and will be doing so for at least another month, as the babies are not expected to be ready to leave hospital before then.
After that, she’ll be heading back to Kenya for a family reunion with Joseph, who has yet to see his children.
