Adekunle Gold has opened up about a sickle cell crisis that hit him mid-air on a flight to Tanzania. The Afrobeats star, real name Adekunle Kosoko, said the attack left him unable to walk and landed him in a wheelchair once the plane stopped in Ethiopia.
He shared the scary details on BBC Radio 1Xtra. “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.
Gold thought the stomach pain was from airport food. “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 said.
It got worse. “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.”
By the time they reached Ethiopia, he could hardly move. “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.
It was a new type of pain for him. “The only crisis I have known in my life is in my stomach. That was the first time I ever heard about that,” he said.
Doctors later told him his oxygen was low because he hadn’t had enough water. “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.
“I said, ‘Wow!’ They almost landed the plane because of me because it was really bad.”
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.”
