By Birgit Bürkner
Suitcase chaos, broken escalators, power surges at security gates. The list of breakdowns at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (BER) is long. Now there was a serious emergency. Were the rescue workers on site too late?
Friday, October 27th, after 11 a.m.: A mother gets off a plane from Turkey with her daughter, who turned one year old the day before. The child is not feeling well: he has breathing problems. The woman is trying to get help. She is recommended to first go through passport control and collect her luggage. Important minutes are lost.
11.45 a.m.: She is at the information point in Terminal 1. The child’s condition has worsened. It doesn’t get any air. The mother screams desperately. Several BER employees called the fire department’s emergency call between 11:45 a.m. and 11:48 a.m. Keywords: “Baby, can’t breathe”, “Can’t breathe!” Actually, an emergency doctor should have been sent out immediately…
11:53 a.m.: Federal police officers rushed to the scene and also called the fire department. You describe an acute obligation to resuscitate! The child’s face has turned blue-gray and his breathing has stopped. A passenger, who is a doctor, begins to attempt resuscitation – without success.
11:54 a.m.: Six paramedics from the airport fire department and the Brandenburg fire department arrive. At 11:57 a.m. they alerted the emergency doctor. The senior doctor from BER and another emergency doctor from the Schönefeld rescue station were on site at 12:06 p.m. and 12:07 p.m. Only around twenty minutes after the first emergency call! According to witnesses, the child has long since suffered a cardiac arrest.
According to the Brandenburg Fire Department control center in Cottbus, which is responsible for emergency medical operations at BER, the child was taken to the hospital “under resuscitation.”
Eyewitnesses are still tormented by questions today: Shouldn’t the rescue workers have been there earlier at one of Germany’s largest airports, with around 20 million passengers a year? Why wasn’t the operation staffed from the outset with an emergency doctor who could also have performed a tracheostomy and given artificial respiration?
A spokeswoman for the airport (BER’s own guard is responsible for paramedic operations) said when asked: “The timing corresponds to all requirements.”
The fire brigade control center also rejects allegations: an acute danger to life could not be derived from the first report, and the prescribed time limit for help (15 minutes) was adhered to when the alarm was raised again.
The spokesman did not want to provide any information about the child’s further condition.