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Chandigarh: Teen dies 4 days after being hit by tree branches amid storm
The boy and his family were leaving for his father’s cremation on Wednesday evening, when two large branches — around 10 to 12 feet long — broke and struck him on the head
Four days after a 17-year-old boy was critically injured as tree branches fell on him while heading for his father’s cremation, he succumbed to his injuries at PGIMER’s trauma centre on Sunday morning.
The incident occurred at EWS Colony in Sector 38-D amid the stormy weather on Wednesday evening, when the teenager, Rudraksh, was helping place his father’s body in an ambulance for cremation.
As the family was preparing to leave, two large branches — around 10 to 12 feet long — broke and struck Rudraksh on the head.
He was rushed to PGIMER’s Advanced Trauma Centre with a critical head injury. After surgery, he was shifted to the neurosurgery ward, but his condition worsened and he was placed on a ventilator in the ICU. On Friday, he slipped into a coma and died on Sunday morning.
Sources at PGIMER said the hospital’s ROTTO (Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation) team had approached the family for organ donation on Saturday. While the family agreed, they could not give consent in the absence of Rudraksh’s mother, his legal next of kin, who had parted ways with the family years ago when he was just two.
Elder brother left alone with both father, sibling gone
The tragedy has left 21-year-old Naman, Rudraksh’s elder brother, glaring at their empty home in Madrasi Colony, Sector 38.
The boys’ father, Rajesh, hailing from Uttarakhand, had died earlier last week due to an illness. Their mother, Monika, had separated from Rajesh when Rudraksh was just a toddler. Ever since, the trio— father and sons — had been living as a small, close-knit family.
Rudraksh, who had dropped out of school after Class 8, was known as a cheerful and carefree boy who mostly kept to himself. “He was deeply attached to his father. Everyone is shocked by the series of tragic events,” said Ritesh, a neighbour, adding that Naman was struggling to come to terms with the back-to-back losses.
The devastating incident has once again exposed the UT administration’s poor upkeep of trees, learning no lessons from the July 2022 tree collapse at Carmel Convent in Sector 9, which had claimed the life of a 16-year-old student and left several others injured.
