Anxiety gripped patients and their attendants at VIMS Hospital here on Thursday for sometime after a medical oxygen cylinder fell causing a loud noise, followed by gas gushing out of it.
On hearing the sound, patients and their attendants standing near the first operation theatre on the ground floor started running helter-skelter. Similarly, in-patients in the adjacent wards also started running out of the building.
Hospital staff, on getting information, rushed to the spot to examine what had happened only to find that the gas from the fallen oxygen cylinder was gushing out.
They immediately tightened the valve of the cylinder and told patients and their attendants that everything was safe. Only then the patients returned to the wards.
Enquiries revealed that a child playing in the corridor could have inadvertently pushed the cylinder which fell causing the loud sound. The cylinder’s valve got loosened due to the impact and the residual gas started gushing out.
There were many cylinders piled up in that area.
Mariraj, Hospital Superintendent (in-charge) and other senior doctors visited the spot.
