La Paz, Feb 22 (Inditop.com/EFE) The Bolivian girl who was born a week ago on board a jetliner in flight will be baptised this week with the name Tami Fabiola on board the same aircraft, and her godfather will be the commander of the Bolivian air force.
The baptism will be held later Monday on board the jet at the military airport in the city of El Alto, just outside La Paz, air force press chief Col Jerry Holters told EFE Sunday.
The family of the newborn infant selected the name Tami because she was born on a TAM airline plane and Fabiola because the firm is owned by the air force, which is known as the FAB, and the company promised to grant her a number of perks, among them free air passage on TAM jets until she reaches age 21 and a college scholarship.
Officials, moreover, have decided to pay for a complete English course for her and to incorporate her into the FAB medical insurance programme, “all because, in effect, this is TAM’s first child”, since this is the only case in which a baby has been born on board a national air force plane, Holters said.
Tami Fabiola’s godparents will be air force commander Gen. Tito Gandarillas and his wife.
The girl’s mother, Lourdes Mamani, gave birth Feb 14 at 24,000 feet in the aisle of the plane with the help of a doctor and nurse who happened to be on board the flight between Cochabamba and La Paz.
Late in the flight, the mother suddenly gave a cry of pain and flight attendants, the doctor and the nurse who were on board rushed over to see what was wrong.
It turned out that the woman was on the verge of giving birth and the medical personnel positioned the woman in the aisle of the plane as it was on landing approach and just a few minutes later – but before touchdown – Tami Fabiola emerged with no apparent complications.
The mother’s labour pains began as the jet was flying at 24,000 feet and the pilot, Col. Ivan Gonzalez, asked the managers of the La Paz airport to give him landing priority, while the passenger was being attended to as hygienically as possible, Holters said.
Mamani was not due to give birth for another two weeks and her pregnancy was not detected by TAM officials prior to the flight because she was wearing a bulky sweater.
In remarks to the media from the El Alto hospital, where she was treated after landing, Mamani said that she was so desperate and nervous about her situation that she didn’t recall feeling any pain during the birth itself.
“The TAM company helped me. The pains came over me in the plane. It was days before my baby was supposed to be born, but everyone helped me,” she said.
