Kiwi vet to the rescue in mid-air emergency

A Tauranga veterinarian had to help treat a sick woman in a mid-air medical emergency.

Dr Nick Sygrove was on a flight from Brunei to New Zealand when a flight attendant requested a doctor over the intercom. It was 90 minutes into a nine-hour flight.

After no one responded, the 35-year-old, who works at Otumoetai Veterinary Hospital, put up his hand, saying: "I'm the next best thing."

"I said 'I'm a vet but I may be able to help'. I didn't know what I was getting myself into," he said.

Dr Sygrove was taken by cabin staff to the back of the aircraft, to a female patient badly affected by suspected food poisoning.

Mr Sygrove said he told the Thai woman that he was an "animal doctor, not a human one", but she was "absolutely fine about it".

He set up a drip and gave her paracetamol.

The woman slept most of the flight, and Dr Sygrove checking on her every hour.

Dr Sygrove said he had basic first-aid skills which were all that was needed in this case.

"You couldn't do anything too dramatic or heroic up there but I could certainly treat the symptoms."

Asked the difference between treating a human patient and an animal patient, Dr Sygrove laughed.

"People don't bite," he said. "It made for a nice change."

By the end of the flight the woman was cooler and more comfortable but was checked over by medical staff when the plane landed.

She was able to pass on her thanks to Dr Sygrove and he later saw her leaving the airport unaided.