- Nearly 300 people were killed and nearly 1,200 injured in India’s worst train crash in decades.
- The hospital staff had only a few minutes to decide who might survive and which cases were hopeless.
- What started as a normal Friday for the medical staff changed after an emergency message ordered them to drop everything and return to the hospital immediately.
As India witnessed its worst train crash in decades, a nearby government hospital turned into a scene of despair and critical decisions.
Every few moments, another blare of ambulance sirens near the Fakir Mohan Medical College and Hospital announced the dispatch of more patients, many of them critically injured.
It is only 25 km from the site of the triple train crash that killed nearly 300 people and injured nearly 1,200.
The medical staff had only a few moments to decide who might survive and which cases were hopeless.
It was a “relentless, war-like situation,” said Dr. Sibanand Ratha.
“All were seriously injured patients with head injuries, amputations, chest injuries and breathing difficulties.”
Some were already dead, others were gasping for life.
Saving lives was the priority, he told AFP.
“But the rush was too great,” he said. “Patients kept coming, non-stop, it was crowded.”
The team “had to decide who got a higher priority,” he admitted, those with a better chance of survival.
“It cannot be said, but as a doctor you know that this patient will not survive.
“It was a completely different experience for me personally.”
Hundreds of victims were taken to the hospital, a neatly painted multi-story building with better facilities than many Indian government hospitals but still only equipped to serve the population of about 200,000 in Balasore, a small town in the eastern state. Odisha.
What started as a normal Friday for the medical staff changed after an emergency message ordered them to drop everything and return to the hospital immediately.
Ratha, 35, said he knew it was a rail accident but “couldn’t imagine” the scale.
He and his colleagues “worked non-stop as the evening turned into night and into the next day.”
The team treated “400 to 500” patients, he estimated, “although we didn’t count, but the ambulances kept coming with patients.”
“We had to quickly empty the beds, we stabilized some patients and sent them to the hospital, and we transferred the less critical ones to orthopedics.
“And whoever had head and chest injuries was wheeled into surgery.”
Midnight blood donations from local residents “really helped,” he said, and the medical supply chain worked through the night to secure all the drugs needed.
Orthopedic doctor Kshitiz Guglani, 25, was off duty when he was called and has been working non-stop ever since.
Many were “polytrauma patients, meaning more than one body system was damaged,” he said.
The accident killed at least 275 people, according to official figures, and nearly 400 of the injured were still being treated in several facilities on Monday.
The Balasore hospital was packed with survivors, other patients and relatives looking for relatives.
Anil Marandi, 29, a tribal laborer from Jharkhand, showed staff at the main help desk pictures of his brother-in-law and a friend, all on one of the trains.
“So far I have found only two bodies,” he said in tears. “I’m still looking for the third one.”