Airborne needlework by ex-NZ surgeon saves boy's finger

Former New Zealand surgeon Quentin Durward answered the call for a doctor on the plane high above the Pacific Ocean to come to the aid of a profusely bleeding 2-year-old.

Dr Durward, a 52-year-old Iowa neurosurgeon who did his initial medical training in Dunedin, said the Chinese boy had cut three-quarters of the tip of a finger to the bone when he put it inside a can of Pepsi.

"As I went down to the galley area there was this panicked Chinese couple holding a Chinese child with blood literally spraying just about everywhere," said Dr Durward, who has practised in the United States since 1983.

"It was a most amazing sight on a plane. It was a macabre and panicky scene."

The plane's captain asked if it was necessary to divert the flight - about two hours out of Hong Kong en route to Chicago last December - to Japan, Dr Durward said, but the boy's injury was not life-threatening.

He had no medical equipment with him, but he and a Chinese-American anaesthetist on board used gear from the plane's emergency medical pack.

The boy's injured finger, the middle finger of his right hand, was rendered painless using a heart medication which doubles as a local anaesthetic.

"That settled the child. I was able to work on it [the injury] and sew the finger back on. It was a pretty simple thing really."

The parents did not speak English and Dr Durward had not been told of the boy's recovery from the suturing, which he performed while returning from teaching at a spinal-injury conference in Vietnam.

"I'm pretty certain it was successful because at the end there was enough circulation, I could see there was a high likelihood it was going to survive."

United Airlines' corporate medical director, Dr Gary Kohn, wrote him a letter of thanks.

It was the second time Dr Durward had responded to a medical emergency on a plane. The first was several years ago when he had to give intravenous fluid to revive a woman on an international flight from Auckland. She fell unconscious because her blood pressure plummeted after she took blood pressure medication and became dehydrated.

A spokesman for Pepsi's New Zealand supplier, Gerry Lynch, said PepsiCo required stringent quality control by its bottlers worldwide and cans were rigorously tested.

He found one report of someone suffering a minor cut in 2004; the can met Pepsi's safety standards.