Four days after Ramlila,man recalls how he saved a woman’s life

Devendra said he struggled for two hours at the Ramlila Maidan before he could find a way to get the unconscious woman to a hospital. He brought Rajbala down from the stage around 1.45 am.

Devendra said he was standing at the foot of the stairs behind the stage. “A few people on the stage came to the top of the stairs and shouted that a woman was lying unconscious on the stage. They asked me if I could take care of her,” he explained. These people helped Devendra take her down. Rajabala,whose limbs were paralysed during the police crackdown,is recuperating at GB Pant Hospital after a spinal surgery on Sunday.

“By then,the air was clouded with tear gas,and I had to fan her to keep her awake. Though she had not lost consciousness completely,she was groaning and only partially in her senses. I picked her up and took her into the media enclosure — it was the first tent I saw,” Devendra recalled. He then rushed to the in-house hospital at the maidaan,which had been set up by the Bharat Swabhiman Trust for emergencies during the protest.

“There was a single doctor inside. I told him that a woman was unconscious,and she needed help. He came out with me with a stretcher,” he adds.

However,the doctor lost his nerve mid-way through their rescue mission. “The doctor got scared. He told me ‘Pehle apni jaan bachani hai yaar’ and ran back,” he said.

Devendra said it was impossible to enter the media tent from the front ,so he went around the stage. “But I was stopped by cops. There was an entire battalion and,though I kept telling them that there was a critically injured person who needed help,they refused to let me enter,” he said.

Around half-an-hour later,he carried Rajbala out with the help of two youths. “No ambulance could be seen in the vicinity. When I managed to get to the road,I asked the policemen again if they had arranged for an ambulance,but they said there were none. Even though they saw us with this woman,they did not come forward to help,” said an angry Devendra.

He said he even got beaten up somewhere along the way. “It was so chaotic,I don’t know if they saw who they lashed out at. What’s worse is that though they planned such a huge operation,they could not bother to get ambulances along,” he said. The rescuers finally managed to drop Rajbala at the hospital around 4 am.

Meanwhile,Rajbala’s family members have been told that her condition has improved partially. “Doctors say there is 5-10 per cent improvement. But she can’t breathe without the aid of a ventilator and her limbs are unlikely to function anymore,” Rajbala’s daughter-in-law Rakesh said.

Rajbala’s relatives said she had some cardiac complications around noon on Thursday. “The doctor on duty came out and told me that her heart rate had started fluctuating. However,after half an hour,a nurse called us in to tell us that her condition has stabilised,” Rajbala’s son Amit said.

“Though we were planning to take her off the ventilator,now we have decided against it,and she will have to continue to be on respiratory support,“ the doctor added. No doctor from the cardiology department was called to monitor Rajbala in the ICU.