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Mission Possible: How to save a life, the 'official' way

Soon after the accident, a high powered team of officials from Madhya Pradesh reached Kanpur to provide help to those who belonged to the state

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Pooja Bhakoni with husband and son
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Mostly dismissed as lethargic, casual and callous, the bureaucratic and political establishment can sometimes radically alter the script. As it happened with Dr Pooja Bhakoni, who was critically injured in last fortnight's train accident near Kanpur and is now recovering in a Delhi hospital thanks to various departments that came together to choreograph a story of survival and solicitude.

The 36-year-old assistant professor at Indore's St Paul Management Institute was headed to Kanpur for a family wedding with her husband and two sons, aged 11 and three, when the Indore-Patna Express derailed on November 20. More than 140 people were killed, including her husband, and 200 injured. While her younger son Ritwick escaped relatively unscathed, elder son Tanishq received multiple fractures. Both are now back home in Indore.

Bhakoni, who is now awaiting pelvic surgery at the BLK Hospital here, had multiple fractures in her hands, legs and pelvis and internal bleeding in the abdominal cavity for which she was initially treated at Kanpur Medical College.

Soon after the accident, a high powered team of officials from Madhya Pradesh reached Kanpur to provide help to those who belonged to the state. They paid all the bills, including food and medicine, and asked Bhakoni's family about their choice of hospital.

"The officials initially arranged an ICU bed in Kanpur's Regency Hospital. But I suggested that she be shifted to Delhi. The Madhya Pradesh government authorities arranged for an air ambulance transfer from Kanpur to Delhi. But since Chakeri airport at Kanpur does not operate at night, she was shifted by road in an ambulance to Lucknow's Amausi Airport," said Dr Kavita Chauhan, Bhakoni's sister who works as a paediatrician in BLK Hospital.

"The ambulance was accompanied by two pilot cars in front and behind acting as a shield and making way for throughout the journey. Authorities in Kanpur helped in providing a safe and clear corridor from Kanpur to Lucknow," she recounted.

The flight reached Delhi at 10 p.m. that night and an ambulance took her to the BLK Hospital's ICU within an hour. All the arrangements were made by Madhya Pradesh government's officials who had full authorization from Chief Minister Shivraj Chauhan, the family said.

"This shows that such things are possible if there is a political will and all the medical systems are in place. This is unthinkable and unbelievable in India," said Dr Rajesh Kumar Pande, director and senior consultant, critical care, at BLK Hospital.

This was not her sister's story alone, said Kavita. It was the same for all those from Madhya Pradesh who were taken by air to different hospitals.

"All the more commendable is that Ashish Srivastava, the resident commissioner of Madhya Pradesh, visited the patient and gave us his official card for any help any time," Pande said.

Bhakoni was on ventilator support till November 24 and doctors are planning to perform a pelvic fixation surgery this week.

The accident in which 14 coaches of the train derailed in the early hours of November 20 in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur Dehat district is the worst in India in six years.

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