GAA STAR HAILED A HERO OF MID-AIR EMERGENCY
Dr Donal helps passenger suffering from heart attack
A GAA star has been hailed a hero for assisting during a medical emergency on a flight from Australia to New Zealand.
Limerick football captain Donal O’sullivan was flying from Melbourne to Wellington when a man in his early 50s fell seriously ill a few rows in front of him.
The GAA player, who has worked as a doctor at Galway University Hospital, rushed to help the man who was thought to have been suffering a heart attack.
Donal provided medical assistance and advised the pilots to return to Melbourne for an emergency landing.
The Limerick captain said: “It wasn’t looking good and we didn’t have a lot of equipment on the plane.
“I ended up putting a line in him, giving him oxygen, giving him fluids, a few basic things – but all harder to do with the space confinement. We were only 30 minutes from Melbourne so we ended up turning around the plane.”
Donal moved to New Zealand at the end of the summer and was in Melbourne to play in the Austrailasian GAA Championships.
He was joined on the flight by fellow Limerick man Kevin Crowley who heaped praise on the modest sports ace.
He told the Limerick Leader: “We took a team from Wellington and Hutt Valley to play in the Australasian GAA championships. Donal, who only joined recently as he was only working in Wellington for a few months, came along with us. On the way home a man with his family started suffering from what looked like a heart attack.
“Donal, who was a few seats ahead of him, seen what was happening and came back to him and helped him out.
“He instructed the plane be turned around for an emergency landing and stayed with him, keeping him alive until we landed and an ambulance came. Thankfully the man is alive.
“He [Donal] is a gentleman and an absolute credit to Limerick GAA.”
Local media confirmed the Boeing 737-800 landed safely in Melbourne and the ill passenger was met by ambulance.