For 11-year-old Ria Gupte, Thursday’s bus ride to school would have been like any other. Only, she had opted to sit with her friends at the rear of the bus. Ria suffered 60 per cent burns, and is now among the eight students of CKT School, New Panvel, who are critical.

“She normally sits in the front row as her stop comes just before the school. But it was just her fate that she went back to sit with her friends,” said one of Ria’s relatives who had gathered outside Masina Hospital’s ICU.

“Six kids were brought to us around 10 am with burns ranging from 30 to 65 per cent, mild range but deep. In most of them, the damage has extended through epidermis to dermis. Three quarters of the dermis is burnt,” said Dr S M Keswani, burns surgeon at National Burns Centre, Airoli.

The children were immediately shifted to the intensive burns care unit at the centre. About surgery, Dr Keswani said it was too early to say anything. “We will have to look at their progress during the three-day resuscitation phase before commenting on surgery. They are in a hypovolemic shock, an emergency condition in which severe blood and fluid loss makes the heart unable to pump enough blood to the body.”

Of the six critically-injured admitted to National Burns Centre’s ICU, four have more than 50 per cent burns.

Manisha Gore, mother of Ronit Gore (13) who suffered about 60 per cent burns, said, “I hope my son gets better soon. I will not go home without him.”

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