The hospital floor, walls, beds were covered with blood

Not long after terror struck the city, I was at the St George Hospital near CST. The macabre aftermath of the mayhem that was unleashed earlier at the station was still unfolding. The corridors of the hospital were packed with people hit by bullets. The hospital floor, walls and beds had turned red with blood. Some were carried in stretchers and the rest had to drag themselves to the hospital. The wards were filled far beyond their capacity. A 20-something girl came in and cried out, “I have a bullet stuck in my back. Someone please take that out. It’s hurting.” But the handful of nurses and doctors, some with expertise only in dentistry, were helpless.

A mother with a bullet injury on her leg was lying on a bed with her five-year-old son, also injured. She was shouting for a doctor. “Forget me, save my child,” she was screaming. Minutes later, the doctors declared the boy dead. The ill-prepared hospital soon ran out of stock of basic things like cotton. But what was commendable was that despite the rumours of terrorists roaming the city roads, doctors from other hospitals arrived to help.
Around 2 am, a colleague and I decided to check out the nearby Cama and Albless Hospital. After attacking CST two terrorists had taken refuge in there. Without thinking, I dialled the landline number of the medical superintendent. A petrified voice picked up the phone and asked, “Are we going to die? Are they still inside?” I said I did not know but the police must be on their job.