Kopad, who was miraculously pulled out alive on Monday night from under the 25-30ft debris of an avalanche, six days after getting buried, breathed his last at 11.45 am at the Army Research & Referral (R&R) Hospital here.
Unaware that her father refused to entertain one more miracle and left to another world to rest in peace, Netra, the year and a half old daughter of Lance Naik Hanumanthappa Kopad asked for the notepad of a fellow reporter and played with it while hundreds, with moist eyes, paid their tributes to the brave-heart at Brar Square in Delhi Cantonment here on Thursday.
Kopad, who was miraculously pulled out alive on Monday night from under the 25-30ft debris of an avalanche, six days after getting buried, breathed his last at 11.45 am at the Army Research & Referral (R&R) Hospital here.
He died despite being put to "maximal life support with aggressive ventilation and dialysis" at R&R, where round-the-clock efforts were being made by a panel of Army doctors and specialists from AIIMs to resuscitate him since Tuesday morning, after being flown in there from Siachen Glacier.
He suffered from kidney and liver dysfunction since the day of arrival at the hospital and kept sinking. On Wednesday, chances of his survival dropped when doctors found oxygen deprivation in his brain.
Kopad's shattered wife Mahadevi and 62-year-old mother Basamma, who had flown in from his home district of Dharwad in Karnataka, were by his side when he breathed his last. When the news of Kopad being alive had first come, even as nine of his fellow soldiers from 19 Madras Regiment died in the February 3 avalanche, his family had called it a 'miracle' and 'rebirth' for him.
On Thursday, as a hearse carried his body out of the hospital to Brar Square, an inconsolable wife and mother followed in another vehicle. "He had spoken over the phone to us in the village and enquired about our well-being just a day before the avalanche," one of his relative, who too came to Delhi to be by his side said.
Kopad was serving in Siachen, the world's highest battlefield, since December 2015. The post that he and his fellow soldiers were guarding was at 19,600 feet and faces temperature well below minus 40 degrees Centigrade and winds up to 100 km and hour.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his grief on the Siachen miracle man's death, defence minister Manohar Parrikar and three services chiefs laid wreaths on his mortal remains wrapped in Tricolour.
Kopad's body was flown to his home state in an Indian Air Force special aircraft later in the evening. His funeral will take place before sunset on Friday.
The soldier, who cleared Army recruitment board's selection in his fourth attempt to join the 19 Madras Regiment, served 10 out of his 13 years of service in difficult and challenging terrains.
Meanwhile, efforts to bring out mortal remains of nine others from Siachen base camp, who died in the avalanche, was hampered on third consecutive day on Thursday due to bad weather. According to the forecast, weather will clear only after another 4-5 days.
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