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Chinese doctors save elderly man's life by sucking out his urine on long-haul flight

Chinese doctors save elderly man's life by sucking out his urine on long-haul flight

"Quick, get me a cup," Dr Zhang said as he started sucking on a straw attached to a tube. He was draining urine from an elderly man's bladder that was on the verge of rupturing.

His quick thinking saved the man's life onboard a long-haul China Southern Airlines flight from Guangzhou to New York on Tuesday (Nov 19).

According to ThePaper.cn, the passenger suffered from a case of acute urinary retention that required immediate treatment. He was also showing signs of going into shock.

Fortunately, there were two surgeons, Dr Zhang and Dr Xiao, on the flight.

After assessing the elderly man's condition, they estimated that there was a litre of urine in his bladder, which was much higher than the organ's normal capacity of 600ml.

The doctors decided to drain the urine by puncturing the man's bladder with the needle. They assembled a makeshift tool from a nasal cannula from an oxygen mask, a syringe needle and packet drink straws.

However, they soon ran into a problem.

While a person's bladder would normally empty itself under pressure, the small needle the doctors used was not enough to relieve the pressure in the swollen organ.

Dr Zhang thought of another solution – to manually drain the urine using suction.

For the next 30 minutes, he removed the urine by sucking on the other end of the tube and spitting the waste liquid into a cup.

Dr Zhang managed to drain about 800ml of urine in total.

With the elderly man out of danger, the kind-hearted doctors reminded him: "Don't forget to go for a check-up at the hospital."

When asked why he didn't hesitate when he had to suck out the urine, Dr Zhang said: "When I saw the elderly man in distress, I was thinking of how I could help relieve his discomfort."

"I was just doing my duty as a doctor."

ALSO READ: Chinese doctors honoured for courageous life-saving acts on flight

lamminlee@asiaone.com

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