Shopping proved a costly affair for 23-year-old Mayur Tambe, a sweeper at the King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital and a star bowler of the hospital's cricket team. “I have never heard such a loud sound. Don't ask me what happened,” he told The Hindu .
Mayur was shopping at Kabutarkhana, Dadar on Wednesday evening when the bomb exploded. The loud sound stunned me, he said.
“I did not understand anything after the blast. There were a lot of people around me. There was lot of commotion. I got up and started walking. I did not know what I was doing. I walked up to Dadar station, took a train to Parel, came to the hospital and got myself admitted here.” He has been admitted to the KEM hospital for an ear injury.
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Being a staffer helped him a lot. During a 15-minute conversation, many doctors, nurses and ward-boys came to greet Mayur, cheering him, conveying their good wishes.
“I am a fast bowler in the cricket team here. Everyone knows me,” he said, eagerly awaiting the arrival of his mother, who has to travel more than 30 km from her home to the hospital.
Mayur is among the lucky few who escaped with minor injuries.
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Mankeshwar Vishwakarma was not so lucky.
After undergoing a complex neurosurgery till late night on Wednesday, he is now on a ventilator, struggling for life. Mankeshwar, a furniture contractor, was in Dadar on Wednesday to buy some plywood when the explosion took place. Doctors said that he suffered severe head injury. “He is critical. We have shifted him to the Intensive Care Unit and he is under observation,” Dr. N.D. Bhosale, Deputy Dean of KEM hospital told The Hindu .
His wife, Rinku, is still clueless. She has been camping outside the ICU since Wednesday night. “They wouldn't let us stay close to him. We got to see him. But then they asked us to wait outside,” Rinku said, even as other relatives got the medicines, took care of her one-year-old daughter and calmed her.
Dhananjay Adhikari, a victim who was injured in the Opera House bomb blast and admitted to the KEM hospital, did not understand what struck him when the blast happened.
“I felt that there was some injury on my stomach. But I did not know what exactly happened. I kept on walking from there. I said to myself, let me reach home and then see. I stay at Dadar. Even as I walked, a taxi driver stopped next to me. I don't remember what happened after I sat in the taxi,” he said.
Doctors said that Dhananjay was not seriously injured. His treatment is going on.
Luciana D'Souza, a 29-year old who suffered injuries on her right hand and both legs, did not wish to talk to the media. “She is just fine now. But we are not comfortable talking to the media,” her relative told The Hindu .
The KEM hospital staffers kept the media away from the victims and their families.
“They are already traumatised. Please don't remind them of that trauma. There are so many who have not been able to sleep throughout the night. Please don't talk to them,” a nurse requested a few journalists who were waiting outside a ward to talk to the victims.