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After a Singapore Airlines’ Boeing 77 flight – flying from London’s Heathrow airport to Singapore on Tuesday – hit severe turbulence, several injured passengers would need spinal surgery, news agency AP reported Bangkok’s Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital as saying.
According to the report, 27 people remained in intensive care, and a 73-year-old British man died after the flight ran into bad turbulence over the Andaman Sea. This led to hurling items and passengers and crew members around the cabin.
The hospital’s public relations officer stated that other local hospitals have been asked to lend their best specialists to assist in the treatments. In the hospital, most of the 104 people hurt in the incident were being treated.
ALSO READ: Singapore Airlines: 3 Indians among passengers aboard flight hit by ‘sudden extreme turbulence’
The hospital director, Adinun Kittiratanapaibool, said at a news conference on 23 May that none of the 20 patients in the ICU were in life-threatening condition. They include six Britons, six Malaysians, three Australians, two Singaporeans and one person each from Hong Kong, New Zealand, and the Philippines.
Describing the terror, passengers shared their experience of the aircraft shuddering, loose items flying and injured people lying paralyzed on the floor of the plane.
It is still unclear what exactly caused the turbulence on the flight, which was carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members on a 6,000-foot runway. The flight was diverted to Thailand.
Hospital director Adinun informed that some 41 persons who had remained at Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital on Thursday morning, 22 had spinal or spinal cord damage, six had skull or brain injuries, and 13 had damage to bones or internal organs.
He added that 17 surgeries have already been performed — nine spinal surgeries and eight for other injuries, while 13 others injured in the incident remain at two different branches of the hospital. The injured passengers include 19 men and 22 women aged from 2 years to 83 years.
On being asked about the prognosis for the most severe cases, Adinun said it was too early to tell if any could suffer permanent paralysis, and doctors would have to observe whether muscle function recovered after surgery.
Meanwhile, on the 22nd morning, a particular Singapore Airlines flight took 143 uninjured or lightly hurt people onward to Singapore.
According to a 2021 report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, turbulence accounted for 37.6% of all accidents on larger commercial airlines between 2009 and 2018. The Federal Aviation Administration, another U.S. government agency, has said there were 146 serious injuries from turbulence from 2009 to 2021.
With agency inputs.
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Published: 23 May 2024, 09:42 PM IST
