Downtown A city if braves When the entire staff of LD hospital here including its medical superintendent, senior doctors and nurses, left hundreds of patients and their attendants to fend for themselves on September 7, about 50 to 60 boys from Tankipora, Rajouri Kadal and other areas of downtown Srinagar showed up at the hospital to rescue over 600 people trapped inside. They also rescued around 300 patients, including pregnant women and new born babies, by risking their lives in the raging flood waters that had entered the hospital—Kashmir’s lone maternity facility. They carried the patients on their backs and on hospital beds, making their way through the flood waters and eventually bringing them to the safety of a nearby foot-bridge. “These boys appeared like angels and saved the lives of over 300 patients who were calling for help from the second floor of the hospital,” says Shabir Wani from Bomia Sopore, who was trapped in the neonatal intensive care ward along with his five-day-old new born cousin. “I owe my life and that of our baby to these brave hearts who risked their lives to save us when the entire hospital administration had escaped.” “It was early Wednesday morning when these boys appeared from the walls of the hospital,” recalls Wani, who was rescued by the boys along with the baby at around 3 pm that day. “When they came to the rescue of the people there, they told us they are the same boys who are branded as stone-pelters by the police and looked down upon by many.” By that time, the flood waters had reached the first floor of the hospital. Everyone trapped was hungry, without food and water for three days. During this period, Wani says, the army helicopters only hovered above and dropped some airdropped some food packs which didn’t reach them. There was no boat in sight, neither from the army nor from the local administration. Wani says the boys from downtown brought along food packets, biscuits and even medicines for the patients before rescuing them from the flooded hospital. Wani recalls the heroic rescue of a pregnant lady when there was no doctor in the hospital. When her attendants approached some of these boys for help, they immediately decided to take her to SKIMS, Soura. Few among them carried the woman on a stretcher, carefully waking on a single brick wall above water with the help of other boys, to cross through the wall—all along carrying the combined weight of the stretcher and the pregnant lady on their shoulders. “The route was flooded, quiet narrow and tough; a normal person could not have walked there without weight, but these two boys carried her to safety on a heavy stretcher,” recalls Wani. “It took them 45 minutes till they reached the foot bridge and I later heard that they were able to save the woman along with her baby.” Wani says he saw two infants die in front of him as the ventilators stopped working due to the breakdown of electricity. “Their parents tried hard to give them artificial respiration but to no avail,” says Wani, who blames the hospital administration for their death. “All the staff in the hospital, including doctors, had left the hospital. The doctors and other hospital staff made ropes of bed sheets and escaped from windows without caring about pregnant women and other people they were supposed to look after in the hospital.” The young brave hearts from downtown rescued people from the hospital and then bring them to the safety of foot bridge where from they would be taken to Amirakadal, and then to Tankipora, where a relief camp was setup by some Hurriyat workers and aided by the local Auqaf committees. “The local administration was absent even there,” says Wani. “And ironically the relief camp setup by local volunteers was only next to the office of Deputy Commissioner.”
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 01:02:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015