•Adekunle Gold
Afrobeats singer Adekunle Gold has recounted a harrowing sickle cell crisis that left him unable to walk and nearly forced an emergency landing during a flight to Tanzania.
The singer, who lives with sickle cell disease, disclosed this in an interview with BBC Radio 1Xtra.
Adekunle Gold said the incident, which he described as his last major crisis, occurred mid-flight while en route to Tanzania with a layover in Ethiopia.
According to him, the crisis started as a stomach pain which he initially mistook for food poisoning from a meal he had at the airport.
“The last major crisis that I had. This is not the one I talked about when I was 20. The last major crisis I had happened on a plane,” he said.
“I was going to Tanzania. And I was supposed to lay over in Ethiopia. I just noticed that I started feeling pain in my stomach. I was cramping. I thought it was maybe some meal that I had at the airport. I was like, ‘I shouldn’t have eaten that.’”
He explained that the pain intensified despite several attempts to use the restroom, prompting concern among the flight crew.
“I was beating myself up about that, but it kept going. I went to the toilet nothing came out. They almost landed the plane because of me, because it was really bad,” he said.
The singer revealed he could not walk when the plane finally landed in Ethiopia and had to be wheeled to the hospital.
“Thankfully, we were closer to landing in Ethiopia. I could not even walk. For the first time in my life, they had to put me in a wheelchair, and they took me to the hospital. And the doctor told me that I had a crisis,” he added.
Adekunle Gold noted that the crisis was different from what he had previously experienced and was linked to dehydration and low oxygen levels on the flight.
“The doctor now told me that when I am on the plane, I should make sure I drink a lot of water. And that my oxygen level was low because I did not drink a lot of water that day,” he said.
Speaking on the challenges of frequent air travel with sickle cell, he added: “I feel like I live on the plane, I’m on the plane 24/7 and if you know anyone living with sickle cell, you will know it is about oxygen, oxygen level and when you are up there, it is crazy.”
