February 9, 11 a.m.: all hands on deck at the Army Hospital Research & Referral in New Delhi. Four days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mourned his death, six days after he had ‘gone under’ at Siachen — 25 feet of snow over him with night-time temperature plummeting to -45°C — here was a man straight out of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! at the hospital’s doorstep: Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad.
Wheeled right away into the ICU, over the next three days, three specialist doctors — Colonel Ranjit Nair, a nephrologist, Colonel Pawan Dhull, a neurologist, and Colonel Ramprasad, anaesthesiologist, along with a team of nurses would take turns to administer exhaustive life-saving measures to him. “He was pretty critical,” Col. Nair says in that grave tone doctors take when they are giving bad news but trying to make it sound like it is not all that bad. Well, we now know that it was as critical as critical gets.
Tragedy on the glacier
The avalanche, in which nine of his fellow soldiers perished instantly, struck around 5 a.m. on February 3. Lance Naik Hanamanthappa is believed to have been caught in an air pocket created by two large blocks of ice, keeping him alive. Around 7 p.m. on February 8, the rescue teams found him. In the throes of hypothermia, he had stripped down to his inner wear. “When the rescue teams found him, he was wearing nothing but his thermals. He was found in a sitting position,” says Lt. Gen. S.D. Duhan, Director and Commandant of the Army hospital. The condition is known as ‘paradoxical undressing’ and is common in extreme cases of hypothermia — a condition when the core body temperature drops to 35°C or lower. The body, in a last-ditch attempt to shut down heat loss, induces vasoconstriction, a contraction of blood vessels. This contraction increases the volume of blood brought to the skin’s surface, making the victim feel like their skin is burning up — think about how drinking alcohol makes you feel warm, when it is actually reducing your body’s core temperature.
“ In Kannada, we explained to them how every organ was failing. Eventually, his wife asked us to stop and switched to Hindi and told the doctors, ‘Ma ko nahin samajh aana chahiye (His mother should not understand)… ”
Meanwhile, that night, two doctors at the ‘Kaziranga’ post gradually started the process of re-warming the 35-year-old soldier. Soon after he was evacuated, the Army had medical specialists from Leh reach ‘Sonam’ post. Lance Naik Hanamanthappa was brought to Thoise airbase in a chopper. With a critical care anaesthesiologist and medical specialist keeping watch, the air ambulance took off for Hindon airbase. “We almost lost him in the air ambulance. He had to be put on ventilator support and from then on his condition kept worsening,” says Lt. Gen. Duhan.
A battle in vain At the Army hospital, the soldier was hooked up to continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT), in which basically a machine performs blood purification for patients whose kidneys have failed.
“When we saw the first set of blood reports, all our fears came true,” says Col. Nair. From that point on, every six hours we had a new bad news, he adds, indicating that every single organ started malfunctioning more and more with each passing hour.
Shortly after Lance Naik Hanamanthappa was found on the snowy heights, a video showing a fully conscious soldier being rescued went viral on social media. That was 2014. The soldier, Kewal Singh, had no more than three feet of snow over him. “The video was misleading. It gave a lot of hope to people,” says Col. Dhull. Could Lance Naik Hanamanthappa have been saved had he been brought a day or two earlier? “No. He probably stood a chance if he had been rescued a day or two after he was snowed under,” says Col. Nair.
Lance Naik Hanamanthappa >breathed his last at 11.45 a.m. on February 11 at the Army hospital. The doctors and nurses had been preparing the soldier’s wife and mother for what was in store. “In Kannada, we explained to them how every organ was failing. Eventually, his wife asked us to stop and switched to Hindi and told the doctors, “ Ma ko nahin samajh aana chahiye (His mother should not understand),” says Lt. Gen. Duhan. If one braveheart lay down his life protecting Mother India, here was another, trying to shield her mother-in-law from pain even as her own world came crashing.
(email: vidya.krishnan@ thehindu.co.in)
Also read:
Behind the endurance is a rigorous training regimen to prepare soldiers for life in the unforgiving terrain. > Read more
He continued to be on ventilator support since his admission in the hospital on Tuesday due to continued multi-organ dysfunction. > Read more
A pall of gloom descended on Betadur, hometown of Lance Naik Hanamanthappa, after news of his death reached the village. > Read more
Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad belongs to a farming family of Betadur village in Kundagol taluk of Dharwad district. > Read more
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At Siachen, every day is a battle of body, mind for troops |
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Siachen soldier loses battle, Pak. ready to mull drawdown |
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He always wanted to be a soldier |
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Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad — from a farming family to the Army |
Corrections & Clarifications:
This article has been edited for factual errors.
