THE Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (Naia 3) has been the site of two attempted suicides in the past and now, an unexpected birth from a passenger who delivered a healthy girl, via normal spontaneous delivery, at the passenger aerobridge at 10:11 a.m. on Tuesday.
Michelle Raz, 31, was already seated aboard Cebu Pacific Flight 5J373, bound for Roxas City, when she felt intense pain that called the attention of the cabin crew.
A stewardess asked Raz what was troubling her, but there was no time to discuss the matter. A son and a sister, who were with Raz, accompanied her out of the A320 that was about to start its engine.
Right after, Raz lay down at the aerobridge and was helped by two doctors, May Prian and Joseph Sayo, who were in the same plane with her. The childbirth occurred without the benefit of any covering, until someone had the presence of mind to borrow a piece of blue woolen blanket to conceal what was happening.
Then the airport physician, Karen Cagawan, went up the aerobridge to assist and a Naia 3 ambulance shortly took mother and daughter to the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Pasay City.
Cagawan asked Raz why she had to travel, knowing that she was due to give birth. She said she was only eight months pregnant and had to lie to the Cebu Pacific’s agent so she would not be denied boarding.
Mother and daughter are doing well at the hospital, Dr. Cagawan said.
In 2009 a distraught mother who came all the way from Laguna went up the third floor of Naia 3 and tried to hang herself on the baluster with her scarf. Fellow travelers prevented it. In 2010 a 30-year-old man leapt from the flyover leading to the departure area and landed on the pavement below across the arrival area. Reports said the man suffered several fractures.
Concerned airport authorities had planned to invite a feng shui expert in the hope of ridding the country’s most modern terminal of the “bad luck” that appears to be hounding it. But that plan did not materialize.
In Photo: A video grab shows Michelle Raz giving birth to a girl at the passenger aerobridge of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 on Tuesday morning.
(Recto Mercene)
