Tardeo fire: Wounded out of danger, say doctors

Murtaza Abedi, 27, sat next to his friend Vincent Alexander, who has minor burns on his hands and torso, in ward 11 at BYL Nair Hospital.

Alexander was among the 12 residents of Ganpat Vete Sadan rushed to the civic hospital after their Tardeo building caught fire on Thursday morning.

But, 65-year-old Arvind Phansekar was brought in dead, said Dr MK Sanjana, acting dean of the hospital.

“The other 11 patients are out of danger. Some have incurred serious burns and some injuries are more superficial. Hopefully, we should be able to discharge a few of them over the next few days. There were two children as well — 11-month-old Pranay and three-year-old Neel Yadav — who incurred superficial burns and injuries,” said Dr Sanjana.

Recounting the incident, Abedi said: “It has been a hell of a day. We woke up hearing screams at 7.45am. Apparently, the fire had been raging for quite a while. Vincent and I were sleeping on the second-floor of the building. He ran up to the third floor to check on his family, while I tried to go down. But the first floor was in flames. I jumped from the balcony onto the props placed to support the building and climbed down to safety.”

“I found a ladder and propped it up for others to use. But one of the elderly men from my building lost his balance and got stuck in the ladder upside down. We had to wait for the firefighters to rescue him. Vincent too escaped by jumping on to the props from the third floor,” he added.

Mayor Sunil Prabhu, municipal chief Subodh Kumar and Dr Sanjay Oak, medical director, major hospitals, BMC, visited the patients in the morning.