Fingers crossed as 6 victims still in ICU

Two days after the high court blast, six of the 76 injured continue to be critical.

Two days after the high court blast, six of the 76 injured continue to be critical.

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The number of casualties has climbed to 13 from the initial 11.

Three of these patients are at Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital, and three others at the AIIMS Trauma Centre.

“All three patients with us are responding to treatment but their health continues to be very serious,” said Dr Sunil Saxena, head of accidents and emergency department at RML.

Among the three critical patients at RML are Harish Kumar, 41, Mridul Buxi, 34, and Rattan Lal, 58.

Kumar was brought in with compound fractures in both his legs and was operated on Wednesday; Buxi had a severe head injury, lower limb damage and stomach perforation and first underwent surgery for removal of clot and was later operated on the stomach; and Lal had to undergo dual amputations.

Both Deepak Kumar, 30, and BK Thakur, 60, had severe lower limb injuries and were rushed to AIIMS on Wednesday, while Vipin Kumar Gautam, 52, was shifted there on Thursday.

Deepak and Thakur both underwent surgeries on Wednesday. “They are now on external fixators which will enable in faster bone alignment. They are recovering well,” said Dr MC Misra chief of AIIMS Trauma Centre.

“It took us a lot of time to convince Gautam to undergo amputation of the left lower limb. We had no choice as his limb was not viable,” he added.

Doctors say that the biggest challenge ahead of them is to keep the patients free of infection post-surgery.

“In cases of splinter and shrapnel injuries the contamination rate is very high and it is difficult to locate or contain infection,”said Misra.