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Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny is in a coma in a Berlin hospital and Germany announced that he was poisoned in Russia with the neurotoxin novicek. Aleksei Navalny was injured while traveling on a plane that had left Siberia for Moscow. The pilot decided to make an emergency landing in Omsk, and after two days, Russian officials were finally convinced to allow the transfer of the Russian opponent to Germany by medical plane.
The BBC has put together all the footage from the film showing Aleksei Navalny’s dramatic struggle for survival. Somewhere in the Siberian air, two hours were crucial to a man’s life.
How was the morning
It was August 20 and Aleksei Navalny was about to board an S7 flight from Tomsk to Moscow. All morning he did not eat or drink anything except a tea that he bought at a café at Bogașevo airport in Tomsk, says his spokesman, Kira Iarmiș.
Another passenger on the flight, Ilia Agheev, saw Navalny drinking tea an hour before the scheduled departure time. The opponent smiled and joked with the other passengers who recognized him.
She begins to feel ill shortly after takeoff.
Time 8:01 – 8:30, local time (1:01 – 1:30 GMT). In the first half hour after takeoff, Navalny began to feel bad. The flight attendants distributed water to the passengers, but he refused. Then he got up to go to the bathroom.
Another passenger tried to use the bathroom, but Aleksei Navalny was already inside for about 20 minutes. There was a line in front of the door.
Around 8:50 (1:50 GMT), the four flight attendants already knew that one of the passengers was not well.
Is there a doctor on board?
A few minutes later, around 9:00 (2:00 GMT), one of the hostesses asked the microphone if there was a doctor on board. The other passengers realized that the situation was serious.
The pilot was informed, and the rest of the crew tried to give Navalny first aid.
His assistant, Ilia Pahomov, walked down the aisle asking the passengers for help. A woman, whose name is unknown, stood up and said she was a nurse.
For the next half hour, she and her flight attendants struggled to keep Navalny in consciousness until the pilot was able to make the emergency landing, according to S7.
He didn’t speak, he just groaned and screamed
Serghei Nejeneț, a lawyer by profession, was sitting in the last row, near the place of a Navalny, receiving medical attention. “I began to pay attention to what happens when a flight attendant asked if there was someone with medical training. A few minutes later, the pilot announced that we would be landing in Omsk, because a passenger was not feeling well. I realized that the passenger was Navalny only after I landed, when I looked on Twitter and saw the post from his spokesperson, “Nejeneț told the BBC.
“A few minutes after the announcement asking if there was a doctor on board, Aleksei began to moan and scream. He was lying on the ground in the part of the plane reserved for the crew. He didn’t say anything, he just groaned. Then came the nurse. I don’t know what were they doing because he couldn’t see. But I heard them keep telling him: Aleksei, baby, baby, Aleksei, breathe. When we heard him groan, in a way, the rest of us felt better, because we told ourselves that at least he was still alive. I emphasize, at that time, I didn’t know it was Navalny, ”said the lawyer.
Two of Navalny’s collaborators were nearby. One of them was his spokesperson, Kira Iarmiș. “She was very nervous, and when asked what happened, she said: I don’t know, he was probably poisoned“Said Serghei Nejeneț.
Has your stomach become empty?
The crew quickly applied for permission for an emergency landing in Omsk, which was immediately granted, according to the airline.
It was 8:20 local time (2:20 GMT). From the moment passengers were notified of the emergency landing, the plane took a little over half an hour to reach the runway.
The team kept checking the window and complained that being so cloudy it would take longer to land, and Aleksei was not doing well.
The attorney heard specific vomit noises when asked to drink.
Omsk airport chief physician Vasili Sidorus refused to confirm or deny whether his stomach was empty. He simply said, “They were everything.”
If they suspected indigestion, this maneuver may have been performed, says Israeli intensive care expert Mikhail Fremderman. But it would not have helped in the case of an organophosphate poisoning that the Germans now speak of (novicek). And if Navalny’s food or drink had been poisoned, spilling it would have endangered those who gave him medical help, and those who would have cleaned the plane afterward, the expert said.
The 9:01 am Omskului time (3:01 GMT), the plane landed, and in time 9:03, the airport medical team was already on board.
“This is not a case for us!”
As soon as they examined Navalny, the doctors said, “This is not a case for us, he needs intensive care,” Nejenets recalls. Then one of them called an ambulance with intensive care equipment and asked them to go directly to the track, saying that the patient was in serious condition. The doctor explained by phone what color the plane was and asked the driver to stop by the stairs.
Still gone 10 minutes until the ambulance arrived. During that time, doctors took Navalny’s blood pressure and gave him an infusion, but “I think it was clear to them that it was of no use to them,” says the lawyer.
Dr. Sidorus says that he did not personally treat Aleksei Navalny, but his colleagues tried to save his life.
“It was difficult to understand what happened, because I couldn’t speak. They did everything they had to do, they saved a man’s life and made sure he was transferred to the correct hospital, “said the Omsk airport doctor.
Passengers say that medics spent 15-20 minutes examining Navalny aboard the plane.
At local time 9:37 (3:37 GMT), was taken off the plane and put on a stretcher in the ambulance that then departed for the Emergency Hospital no. 1 from Omsk.
When they landed in Moscow, the police and people in overalls boarded
The plane was refueled and after half an hour it continued its flight to Moscow.
“When we landed at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, policemen and people in overalls boarded the plane,” Sergei Nejenets said. “They asked passengers who had seats near where Aleksei had stayed to stay, the rest were free to go.” Aleksei was sitting somewhere in the middle of the plane, in row 10 or 11, ”recalls the lawyer.
He confesses that it was strange to him that the police came on board. “At that time, the case did not appear to be criminal in nature. And yet it was the security service,” says Serghei Nejeneț.
Metabolic disorder in Omsk, Novice poisoning in Berlin
For two days, the Omsk hospital kept Navalny in the acute poisoning room. Initially, Russian doctors did not agree to take him by medical plane and take him to Germany, claiming that his condition is unstable.
However, on August 22, Navalny was transferred to the Charité clinic in Berlin, and two days later, German doctors said the tests they carried out indicated poisoning.
Omsk doctors, including the chief doctor of Emergency Hospital no. 1 and the chief toxicologist insisted that no poisonous substances were found in Navalny’s body while he was in his care. They indicated as a possible diagnosis “a metabolic disorder”.
The BBC asked the Omsk medical authorities for their views and details on Aleksei Navalny’s hospitalization, but received no response.
Editor: Luana Păvălucă
