Patient thanks her flying doctor, (Royal Flying Doctor Service)

As if performing brain surgery is not tricky enough, Dean Boyatzis pulled it off during a bumpy flight from Kununurra to Perth.

Dr Boyatzis received a Spirit of Flynn Award at Saturday's Royal Flying Doctor Service ball for performing a lifesaving procedure on Savanna Addis when a blood clot re-formed on her brain during a flight in February. The 10-year-old, who has made a remarkable recovery from brain damage, made a surprise appearance at the ball where she gave Dr Boyatzis $8000 she had raised for the RFDS.

"She was really close to dying from having too much pressure on the brain," Dr Boyatzis said.

"We were still six hours from Perth so there was no alternative, I had to remove the clot.

"I have done some pretty crazy stuff in emergency departments but never by myself and never in that stressful a situation."

If the journey was not fraught with enough difficulties, they were forced to land in Telfer because of a storm front and were stranded there almost three hours because the fuel pump was broken.

Mother Helen Addis told of how flight nurse Jocelyn Forbes called on the Derby Baptist minister to pray for a break in the weather so they could get to the Camp Nifty mine site to refuel and continue on to Perth. Lo and behold, their prayers were answered.

"But it still took us 17 hours to get from Kununurra to Perth, although everyone that day did all that was humanly possible with the resources they had," Ms Addis said.

"It was a horrible flight, the weather was really bad and turbulent so when we finally got to Perth she looked like she had come out of a war zone."

Ms Addis said she was eternally grateful to the RFDS, without which she did not think people could live in the North West.

"People would die. The RFDS basically underscores regional Australia," she said.

 

"Out of Savannah's school of 200 students, there have been four evacuations in the last six months."

Source:  http://au.news.yahoo.com