AHMEDABAD: A toddler who fell in an open borewell in Gujarat’s Devbhumi Dwarka district on Monday afternoon was pulled out after an eight-hour-long multi-agency effort but she died before reaching the hospital, people familiar with the matter said.
District collector Ashok Sharma said the two-and-a-half-year-old girl, Angel Sakhra, was unconscious when she was pulled out after being stuck in the borewell for about eight hours.
Dr Ketan Bharathi, resident medical officer of Jam Khambhaliya General Hospital, said a paediatrician from the hospital accompanied the medical team stationed at the site of the incident. “As soon as the girl was brought out of the borewell, her treatment started while she was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance,” Dr Bharathi said, according to news agency PTI, adding that she died before reaching the hospital away.
She died at about 10.30pm, said Sharma.
The incident took place at about 1pm when the girl was playing near her house in Ran village on Monday. The abandoned borewell was near the house.
Her family and neighbours heard her cries and rushed out to find her trapped 30 feet deep.
{{/usCountry}}Her family and neighbours heard her cries and rushed out to find her trapped 30 feet deep.
{{/usCountry}}Sharma said the rescue operation was initially led by the revenue and police officers. But they soon realised that they would need help. Civic body officials from Jamnagar and volunteers from Reliance Industries also stepped in to offer their assistance,” he said.
A man who had been tracking the rescue effort via local television channels reached the site with a night vision camera. Sharma said the gesture helped. “We used the camera to closely observe the child’s situation. Despite our attempts to extract the child by creating a loop mechanism, there were difficulties and she got stuck midway in the process,” said Sharma.
An NDRF official said that to rescue the girl, her hand was locked with a rope and an L-shaped hook was deployed to provide stability. Parallel digging was also carried out but it could not save the girl