On Thursday, GVK EMRI – the 108 ambulance service – received a whopping 246 emergency calls, overstretching its fleet of 25 blue and white striped ambulances. By 8 in the evening, Kaushal Patel, who coordinates the Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad fleets, had a strained and tired voice as he recalled the data registered throughout the day. He had been in the field since 7 in the morning. “It’s (number of calls) not stopping. It’s increasing day by day; 194 the day before yesterday, 210 yesterday, 246 today,” he said.

Almost 50 of today’s calls were from friends and relatives of the people who had consumed illicit alcohol, or from hospital staff asking the ambulances to shift critical patients to the Civil Hospital. “About 40 of the calls were from Bapunagar, Odhav, CTM and Krishnagar,” said Manan Dave, GVK EMRI’s partner.

When asked about the condition of patients, Dave said, “We were too busy receiving the calls, we never had time to check (patients’ condition).”

According to Patel, while half of them were already unconscious, others were vomiting and twisting in pain. A fortunate few were able to talk. “There were some patients who looked fine when they were taken to the hospital. But in 20 minutes, they would start vomiting and go into coma,” Patel recalled.