THOOTHUKUDI
A lorry driver, who was admitted to the Thoothukudi Government Medical College Hospital with neural complications on Tuesday evening and later found to have contracted COVID-19, died on Friday.
The 34-year-old youth from Kadaladi in Ramanathapuram district returned from Chennai to his native place in a lorry going to Thoothukudi as bus service remains suspended. As he got down from the lorry at Kurukkusalai, situated 16 km from Thoothukudi on the Madurai highway, he developed fits and was admitted to a private hospital in Thoothukudi by his relative, who was waiting for him at Kurukkusalai.
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When his condition worsened, the patient’s relative shifted him to the Government Medical College Hospital’s intensive care unit on last Tuesday evening without telling the doctors there that the lorry driver had come from Chennai. Even as the doctors were treating him for the neural complication, the lorry driver developed COVID-19 symptoms and the doctors’ worst fear was confirmed on Wednesday evening when he tested positive.
Subsequently, he was shifted to the COVID-19 treatment ward, where his condition deteriorated further and was put on ventilator. However, he died on Friday.
As the COVID-19 positive patient died, the body, as per the protocol, was packed in polythene bag and buried in a 15-feet-deep pit in the Corporation burial ground opposite VOC College after filling the pit with disinfectant and sand layers for every two feet with police protection.
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Meanwhile, the doctors, nurses, conservancy workers and other patients of intensive care unit of medical college hospital, the doctors, nurses and other staff of the private hospital where he was admitted first have been isolated and put in quarantine.
“In all, 70 persons have been quarantined and disinfection is going on in the ICU,” said the sources in the Thoothukudi Government Medical College Hospital.