While shock and horror were the two states most of Mumbai found itself in immediately after the 1993 Mumbai blasts, those providing emergency services could ill afford to let it come in their way.
On March 12, 1993 and several days to follow, all that the staff of South Mumbai’s St George Hospital could see beyond spilled blood all over were grieving families and a swarm of curious onlookers, some of whom were trying to locate loved ones among the dead.
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Two blasts separated by an hour – one each in Bombay Stock Exchange, and Air India building – accounted for over hundred lives and injured nearly thrice as much. While 84 died and 217 injured at BSE, 20 killed and 87 were injured at Air India.
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Nearly a quarter of a century later, few staffers are available to narrate what they witnessed on the day of the blasts. On a day that The Hindu visited the hospital in the run up to Yakub Memon’s likely execution, only one staff member was available to recount what happened on that fateful day in 1993.
“While we were not allowed to go outside, the trail of blood from the main premise of the hospital to the main gate told us the story of the severity of these attacks. Because the number of ambulances available was limited, some bodies as well as patients were brought in hand carts. For several hours, doctors performed one operation after the other with little to no gap in between,” he said,
An added responsibility for the hospital staff was to console the family members of the patients, many of whom lost their calm at the sight of dismembered or charred body of a relative.
The hospital’s medical superintendent Dr. Jagdish B. Bhawani, who was in JJ Hospital in 1993, said that the sight at his workplace was no different. Many patients were either taken directly to JJ or were referred to from St. George.
Both Dr. Bhawani and his junior staffer also credited the city for the tremendous spirit shown in providing rescue and relief to the victims. Blood donation camps were set up within no time and the number of people who came forward to donate blood for the patients was so high that doctors had to urge them to stop because there was no storage available.
St. George Hospital also attended the patients from 26/11 attacks. Since it is housed in a heritage structure built in the 17century, the hospital administration cannot make architectural change which effectively means there has been little capacity building since 1993.