In a complex and incredible operation, Odisha’s disaster response force personnel successfully rescued a newborn baby girl from an abandoned borewell in Sambalpur district, 300 km from here on Tuesday.
The baby was believed to have been dumped in the borewell. The difficult operation involving disaster response force personnel, doctors and administration had spanned over six hours. During the rescue period, the baby was crying intermittently while doctors were closely monitoring the situation.
The rescue effort resembled dramatic movie scenes with a victim location camera flown in from the State capital Bhubaneswar to Jharsuguda. The camera gave exact information about the health condition of the baby who was trapped approximately 13 feet below the ground in the borewell.
During these anxious moments, doctors were ascertaining the condition only through the crying of the baby. The baby was stuck in inverted position with head directed downwards.
Around 3 p.m. on December 12, people heard the crying of the baby at Laripali village near the Rengali area of Sambalpur district. Soon fire service personnel and earth-movers were deployed for the rescue operation.
Delicate operation
“The rescue operation was very delicate. We had dug a parallel opening to reach out to the borewell pipe in consultation with experts. The baby was stuck at 13 ft below the surface,” said Mukesh Kumar Bhamoo, Sambalpur Superintendent of Police.
As the temperature was plummeting fast, doctors first dropped down an electric bulb to heat up the space around the baby. Doctors said it helped address the condition of Hypothermia, which is a medical emergency when body loses heat, leading to fatal low body temperature.
The baby immediately responded and cried signalling that the vital organs were intact. A doctors’ team with ambulance was kept ready to provide medical attention to the new born. Soon after the rescue, the baby was rushed to the Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Science and Research, Burla where a team of paediatricians were ready to attend the victim.
‘Great relief’
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik expressed happiness over the safe rescue and said, “It is a matter of great relief. I wish a long life for the baby.”
Over a decade between 2009 and 2020, more than 40 children fell into the borewell, while on average 70% of the conventional child rescue operations had failed, says the National Disaster Response Force, which came out with standard operating procedures for this kind of rescue.
The NDRF said about 92% of victims were under the age of 10. The open borewells had become a death trap as children fell into them while playing unmindfully. In 2006 a five-year-old child named Prince was rescued after 49 hours of rescue operation in Kurukshetra district of Haryana.
