Weary five-year-old falls asleep next to mother's body in Hyderabad hospital

She arrives with the boy at Osmania General Hospital on Sunday night, gasping for breath, and dies a little later after being attended to.

Heart-rending: Sameena Sultana’s five-year-old son falls asleep beside her, unaware that death has snatched his mother from him for ever.

When doctors at the State-run Osmania General Hospital saw a young woman gasping for breath while walking into the emergency late on Sunday, accompanied only by a 5-year-old, they were surprised. But the sequence of events that unfolded soon left them moved.

Around 11.30 p.m. the woman arrived, barely conscious and supported by her little son, and no adult accompanying them.

Doctors quickly realised that she was suffering a cardiac-related problems and time was short. However, cardiopulmonary resuscitation was not able to save her and she died after 30 minutes. The doctors then decided to approach the police.

Volunteers help

Unaware of the tragedy, the five-year-old boy fell asleep on the hospital bed beside his mother’s body. Moved by the scene, a group of volunteers intervened to trace the woman’s family.

They found that the boy had his mother’s Aadhaar card, identifying her as Sameena Sultana, a construction worker. “Sultana’s husband had deserted her three years ago. She lived with a man in Rajendranagar, who might have left her outside the hospital,” said Mujtaba Hasan Askari of Helping Hand Foundation (HHF).

Medico-legal case

With help from Mailardevpally police, HHF volunteers were able to trace Sultana’s parents in Zaheerabad. Some 18 hours after her death, her family arrived. The boy was handed over to his uncle.

A medico-legal case was registered as there were no adults to take custody of the body. Autopsy did not lead to suspicions about the death. The hospital arranged for an ambulance to transport the body to her hometown.