Software engineer loses battle with life

NEW DELHI: His American dream interrupted by a gruesome accident that left him paralysed neck down,
software engineer Manjunath Kalmani died here after a six-year-long survival on ventilator support.

Admitted in the Intensive Care Unit of Safdarjung Hospital in the capital in March this year after he was flown back from the US, 33-year-old Kalmani died on Wednesday afternoon.

Son of a farmer in Koppal district in Karnataka, Kalmani had moved to the US hunting for a better life.

Unfortunately, he met with an accident which left him paralysed neck down and he barely could move or speak. After being on the ventilator for six long years in a hospital there, he was flown to India after his visa expired.

However, Kalmani was not keeping well for the past two weeks and was suffering from Septicaemia.

Safdarjung Hospital Medical Superintendent Jagdish Prasad said, "We had been successful in reviving him after he had three cardiac arrests. His urine output had drastically fallen and his blood pressure was really low. He was on high antibiotic dose and was not responding to medication. He could not be revived after the fourth attack."

Kalmani's mother Vidyawati had been in Delhi for the past three months.

He had been hoping to get on to a wheelchair and go back home and his hopes had been strengthened when 33-year-old Australian Perry Cross, a C-2 level quadriplegic who led an active life, had come over to India to meet him.

His body will be flown to his home in Hosakera village in Gangavati district.