Chennai: In a poignant incident, an orthopaedic surgeon had to bury his associate, a neurosurgeon who died of COVID-19 here, in the middle of the night using his bare hands and a shovel at a crematorium with the help of just two hospital wardboys after the undertakers fled when a mob, protesting the interment, attacked them.
Their opposition was due to a misconception that the contagion may spread in their neighbourhood if the virus victim’s burial took place. They attacked the undertakers and corporation sanitation officials, among others, using bricks, stones, bottles and sticks and chased them away. Seven people, including two ambulance drivers were assaulted, police said. 20 men were arrested and remanded in judicial custody.
Recounting with grief the attack that unfolded, Dr K Pradeep Kumar, an orthopaedic and arthroscopy surgeon, said, “This must not happen to anyone be it a doctor or a layman. I have seen people dying but I have not buried anyone and doing it was scary amid a fear for our lives.”
“It may have been about 15 minutes since the excavator started work to dig a pit, when about 60-70 people armed with stones, bricks and sticks gathered inside the crematorium and began attacking us.
The two ambulance drivers who were shifting the body from the vehicle to the ground sustained severe injuries,” Pradeep said.
Also, two sanitation officials who were in charge of the burial were injured severely and three others were also attacked, he said. To a question, the doctor said there were no police officials around and the wife of the deceased and his teenage son were also forced to leave the crematorium.
“Though injured, the ambulance drivers Dhamu and Anand were brave enough to place the casket again in the vehicle and I asked them to leave the place and I followed them in my car,” he said, adding he escaped from attack due to God’s grace.
The ambulance drivers somehow managed to reach the hospital of the deceased and left the vehicle there. Dr Pradeep said he picked up PPEs, took two wardboys with him for help and drove the ambulance himself to the crematorium again after seeking police help.
When he reached the crematorium again, he saw police deployment in the periphery though there were still people out milling around.
“The wardboys and I hurriedly lowered the body into the pit as we were afraid that the violence may be repeated.”
Though they placed the body on the ground, they had no one to help them to fill the grave with sand. “There was just one shovel which I gave to one of the ward boys and two of us used our hands to fill the about 8-10 feet pit. It took over an hour for us to complete the task and by then it was about 1.30 am,” he said, adding a policeman lent a helping hand towards the end. “Even policemen were afraid of coming near us.”
Dr J Amalorpavanathan, former convener, Cadaver Transplant Programme, Tamil Nadu government, said “A dead person cannot sneeze or cough or breathe. So all ways of infection spread stops the moment a person dies. Viral replication also stops. Skin may contain viral particles. So long as there is no touch, there is zero per cent chance of infection spread.” (PTI)
