Emergencies raise fears over first aid

The story told by a doctor about how his father-in-law died at an airport in Beijing has drawn people's attention to the first aid that airports and airlines provide.

Wen Tianlin, a doctor in Beijing, posted on his micro blog on Tuesday that his father-in-law died of a heart problem last spring at Beijing Nanyuan Airport.

The doctor blamed airline crew and airport staff for not offering enough help in time.

He decided to relate this painful memory when he was inspired by a journalist from Northeast China's Liaoning province.

The journalist, surnamed Zhang, shared on the micro blog on Sunday about how he had 80 centimeters of his gut removed as a result of airline crew and airport staff being slow to get him to the hospital when he suffered an internal abdominal hernia.

Earlier this month, Zhang felt a sudden pain in his stomach soon after his flight to Beijing took off. According to Zhang's micro blog posts, although the crew contacted an ambulance and the airport clinic during the flight, they failed to open the cabin door for 50 minutes after the plane landed and wasted time quarreling with emergency care personnel over who should carry Zhang off the plane.

The price of the delay was that Zhang lost part of his gut, he said in the posts.

The two incidents have triggered discussion on the Internet. Wang Ya'nan, deputy editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, said such incidents are rare as a mature emergency system has been established among airline companies all over the world, including China.

"In the journalist's incident, I think the members of the crew may lack experience in cooperating with each other or with the medical staff," Wang said.

"More training and practice should be carried out."

Zhang, the journalist, said on his micro blog that a leader of the airline company visited his home on Nov 23 to apologize. The emergency center at the Beijing Capital International Airport apologized on the same day and pledged to improve their cooperation with airlines under an initiative called "Life comes first".

zhaoxinying@chinadaily.com.cn