Sahadev Bhuvad's right leg has been amputated. “My legs are gone. I am hurt,” he told his daughter, Megha Ambekar, on the phone from Opera House here, where a high intensity blast took place on Wednesday evening.
At the Harkishandas Hospital, his leg was amputated from the thigh. “The doctors said there was an infection. He is now in the intensive care unit and has not regained consciousness. We never imagined such a thing would happen,” Manisha Parab, another daughter told The Hindu .
A majority of surgeries that took place in the hospital were leg amputation. A senior doctor at the hospital, who did not wish to be quoted, said: “We performed 12 surgeries through the night. One more will be performed soon and six others over the next few days. We have victims with burns, splinter injury, loss of blood and tissue, and some with trauma. In a number of cases, body parts were blown off. In one case, I saw a victim's broken leg dangling, and intestines were out. Taxis in which people were brought were soaked in blood.”
Tushar Gangaram Kolwe, 29, a diamond worker, who was injured in the Opera House blast, battled for his life for five hours before dying.
“The doctors tried very hard, but he had lost a lot of blood. He was given blood transfusion, but could not be saved. He was admitted at 7.15 p.m. and died around midnight. He had suffered a brain injury,” Salvo Bhuvad, his sister, told The Hindu over telephone.
Shashikant Wage, another victim at Opera House, received wounds and splinter gashes in the back, shoulder and right arm. “The injury on his back is two to three-inch deep. There are many minor shrapnel wounds on the right arm. His work involves diamond assortment for which you need the right hand. It would be one and a half months before he can go back to work. He is fine now. He was unconscious after the blast. In the impact of the blast, he had been thrown up five-six feet off the ground,” said a colleague, Brijesh Upadhyay.
Mr. Wage, who was in the habit of staying back after working hours to avoid the rush in trains, was hanging out at food stalls with his friends and colleagues on Wednesday evening.
Mr. Wage's wife has not been informed of his condition yet. His friends said he called her to say he was spending the night at a relative's place. “She will get tensed up. She has a one-and-a-half-year old child to take care of,” said his colleagues. Harkishandas authorities said there were six casualties at the hospital and 28 injured persons were admitted. The six deceased are: Mohan Manjappa Naik, Mukesh Hazarimal Seth, Tushar Gangaram Kolwe, Sunilkumar Komalchand Jain, Bhupat Mukundbhai Navadiya and Arunkumar Chotelal Jaiswal.
At the Saifee Hospital, a private facility, four persons were brought dead. “We have 50 to 60 persons in the casualty ward; 31 of them were OPD patients. We now have 18 patients admitted, out of whom the condition of one is critical,” Dr. Shabina Khan, assistant manager, administration, told The Hindu over telephone.
Dr. Khan said the limb of 13-year-old Dinesh had to be amputated. The hospital performed eight operations during the night. “We had people with fractures, burns, foreign bodies and lacerated wounds.”
The Maharashtra government said 21 ambulances were pressed into service at the blast site.
