A 5-year-old boy with hearing and speech impairment died after he swallowed the lid of a bottle of eardrops.
Aminjikarai police sources said the incident occurred when the boy, S.Parameshwaran, was playing with his two siblings in the single-room house they stay with their parents in Ponnuvel Pillai Thottam 6th Cross Street, Aminjikarai. Their parents, Sekar and Latha, both construction workers, had gone to work on a site on Poonamallee High Road at the time. “At 3.15 p.m. I heard the cries of Parameshwaran's elder sisters Vanitha and Madhumitha and rushed to their house. I saw the motionless body of the boy and the girls told me that he had swallowed something and fell unconscious,” said B. A. Khaleel, the owner of the house.
With Vanitha holding the little boy seated on the pillion, Khaleel rushed to the Government Kilpauk Medical College hospital on a motorcycle. “Doctors who examined him at the emergency care said he had died minutes ago. A post-mortem on Tuesday morning revealed that the boy had swallowed the inner closure of the eardrop bottle, which was one of the medicines used treat his hearing impairment,” Khaleel added.
The boy's parents took the body to their native village in Ulundurpet, Viluppuram district, on Tuesday afternoon to perform the last rites.
Parameshwaran was studying at a balavadi near home. His father Sekar, a mason, had planned to enrol him in a school cum hostel for children with speech and hearing impairment in Anna Nagar. He had even got the application forms and photographs of his son, neighbours said.
