At 2:30 AM on Saturday a fire broke out at the Indira Gandhi Government College and Hospital (IGGMCH).Savita Ikhar (47) Who was on night duty, saved nine premature babies. The fire broke out due to an electrical short circuit at the post-birth unit (PBU)-NICU of the department of pediatrics.
While Rescuing the babies, Savita made sure that apart from evacuating them safely, she made e sure that the babies has their labels so that they could be identified later. Ikhar also turned off the jumbo oxygen cylinders and averted a major tragedy since the firefighters weren’t there.
According to the people who were inside the hospital, Savita had come out of the NICU after feeding a baby, and that’s when she saw the electrical panel with the MCB in flames. She started screaming for help since the department doesn’t have any fire alarm or fire fighting equipment, but then she realized that screaming for help will not be of any help and she ran inside the PBU and rescued the babies and herself.
The rescued Nine babies were ranging from one to 15 day old and out of the 9 four were boys, and five were girls. Savita later said that.“The short circuit crippled power supply, and smoke started entering the PBU-NICU. One of the machine lamps was still working. I first grabbed four babies in both arms after putting on their tags and rushed out with them.
These babies were not on Oxygen, so it was easy to move them,” Savita left four of the babies on a gynecology operation theater bed, and then she rushed back to rescue the other babies.
The administration staff and the nurses after seeing the flames came to help Savita and rescued the five babies out of three who was on Oxygen. According to the officials, the PBU was left without the power because the MCB was completely burnt. For a week the PBU will be out of use, and the administration has started with the repairs for the other works too. Once the electrical repairs are done, the PBU will have to get fumigated, which will take another two days.
