It was May 26, past 8.30 pm. 35-year-old, P Jayakumar, who finished his duty as a scrub nurse in a couple of C-section surgeries at the Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital for Women and Children, was busy writing charts outside the operation theatre when he heard insistent screams.
Jayakumar rushed to the spot and found a huge plume of smoke emerging outside the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of the hospital. A fire had broken out from the AC in the duty doctor’s room adjacent to the NICU where there were more than 40 neonates, including three newborns on a ventilator. Initially, Jayakumar couldn’t see the source of the fire though he had entered the room of the fire.
“I couldn’t even see the fire nor the person next to me,” he recalled. “But, I was only thinking of the babies because if it entered the NICU, it would have created a big disaster because neonates can’t tolerate that type of hazardous fog. They will collapse in ten seconds.”
Having been trained for fire emergencies seven years ago, Jayakumar ran the operation solely before fire and rescue teams could arrive. When he found the source of the fire, his anxiety gripped him more. The floor below the source of the fire was also the manifold room where additional oxygen cylinders were stored due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was a second potential disaster. The NICU staff had locked themselves from the inside, switched off all power and oxygen lines and began manual hyperinflation or ventilation for the babies.
{{/usCountry}}Having been trained for fire emergencies seven years ago, Jayakumar ran the operation solely before fire and rescue teams could arrive. When he found the source of the fire, his anxiety gripped him more. The floor below the source of the fire was also the manifold room where additional oxygen cylinders were stored due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was a second potential disaster. The NICU staff had locked themselves from the inside, switched off all power and oxygen lines and began manual hyperinflation or ventilation for the babies.
{{/usCountry}}Jayakumar is asthmatic. “But, at that time I didn’t know from where I got the energy,” he said. “There was no time to give instructions to someone else. My mind was only thinking I’ve to stop the fire.” In half an hour he had emptied 12 fire extinguishers to put out the fire and reduce the thick smog. After bringing the situation under control, Jayakumar collapsed.
He was treated in the ICU for five days for multiple problems after he had inhaled large amounts of carbon dioxide and toxic fumes. “My peripheral controls were low and I couldn’t even hold a cup to drink water for the first three days,” he said. He still has breathing difficulties due to his asthmatic condition and has reddish eyes. Despite wearing a PPE, his whole body has been covered with chemicals from the extinguisher. “It was unbearably hot and my skin turned into hash colour but it is getting better,” Jayakumar said.
He lives in Ponneri, a town in adjoining Thiruvallur district with his wife and two daughters aged 5 and 3 respectively from where he commutes to Chennai every day.
On Friday evening, Jayakumar received a call from state minister for Hindu religious and charitable endowments Sekar Babu, asking him to come with his family to chief minister MK Stalin’s home on the following day. Stalin honoured him for his bravery. “36 infants, 11 children, who were kept in incubators and their mothers were saved due to Mr Jayakumar’s actions,” an official statement said.