Headlines
Indian American surgeon among first to help injured Harrison Ford
Los Angeles, March 6
Indian-American spine
surgeon Sanjay Khurana was playing golf Thursday when a single-engine
plane crashed on the course. The pilot was none other than famous
Hollywood actor Harrison Ford.
Khurana was among the first to pull out the injured star from the wreckage.
When
Khurana saw the plane crash on the course, next to Santa Monica
Airport, he followed his first instinct to rush to the plane to ensure
the pilot was safe.
At the time, Khurana was golfing on the 7th
hole of the Penmar Golf Course. He saw Ford's plane hit a tree before
nose-diving to the ground. He dropped his clubs and ran to the crash
site, seeing "a passenger in the rear seat slumped over in distress
belted in."
"He was stunned a bit," Khurana said. "He was moaning and in pain." Khurana says he quickly recognised the famous pilot.
"It
was obvious by his face, it was Harrison Ford. I'm old enough, or young
enough, to have watched all his 'Star Wars' films. So, it was obvious,"
Khurana told ABC News.
Khurana, who was interviewed by numerous
TV channels in Los Angeles, said aside from worrying about Ford's
injuries from the impact, he saw fuel leaking out of the World War
II-era plane.
He and other golfers pulled Ford from the wreckage. Others threw dirt on the fuel so it wouldn't catch fire.
"We
wanted to get him out safely and with the fuel leaking out, I motioned
to some of the other folks at the golf course to put dirt on the fuel so
it wouldn't combust. I just wanted to get him out safely so that the
situation wouldn't erupt into a fire," Khurana told channels.
Khurana
said though bleeding heavily, Ford was able to speak and move despite
his injuries. Ford is best known for his roles in the "Star Wars" and
"Indiana Jones".
Ford is expected to make a full recovery.
In
a statement released Thursday night, the movie star's representative
said while he was "banged up," his injuries were not life-threatening.
His publicist, Ina Treciokas, described the actor's injuries as
non-life-threatening.
The 72-year-old actor reported engine
trouble shortly after taking off from Santa Monica Municipal Airport and
asked for an immediate return to the airport, National Transportation
Safety Board investigator Patrick Jones said.
The tower then
reported his aircraft came up short of the runway, according to air
traffic controller transmissions from LiveATC.net
The vintage WW-II airplane that Ford was piloting clipped a tree before crashing, Jones said.
Hours after the crash, Khurana remained surprised by what occurred.
"You
don't go golfing expecting to see an airplane crash and to help extract
someone and realise it's someone you know from the movies, right? It's
fairly bizarre," he told ABC News.
"But as a surgeon, I've been
practicing for almost over a decade now, you deal with urgent
situations. So you have to do your best for someone in distress."
see video at: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/03/05/doctor-who-helped-extract-harrison-ford-from-downed-plane-speaks/