16 blinded near Rampur as jeep falls into pit filled with chemical

Deputy Chief Medical Officer (Rampur), Dr Sanjay Sabarwal said that all they were referred to AIIMS "because there was a possibility of cornea transplant there." Apart from those admitted to AIIMS, 14 others were also hurt in the incident and were admitted to local hospitals in Haldwani (four) and Rudrapur (11) districts.

Dr Namrata Sharma, casualty in-charge at AIIMS's RP Centre who examined the 16 labourers, said all of them had suffered moderate to severe alkali burns in the eyes. "The medical prognosis as of now is poor but some of them may recover later after treatment. Some of them even have burns on their necks, face and hands."

Binod Kumar and Om Prakash, cousins from the Rampur district, had never heard of the AIIMS, until they were rushed to the hospital in national capital on Friday morning. Writhing in pain and barely audible, they uttered with swollen lips accounts of their close shave with death on Thursday morning when a mini truck carrying them to Uttaranchal skidded off a muddy route along the Bagpur-Tanda road in Swar area and fell into a ditch. That ditch, as they figured out later, was filled with a water-like chemical that burnt their eyes.

"They were traveling to Ram Nagar in Uttaranchal when the incident took place. Due to an under-construction bridge on the road, their truck took a makeshift road along the bridge and while trying to maneuver the route, it skidded, overturned and ended up in the ditch,” Tulsi Ram, who accompanied son Om Prakash to AIIMS said.

According to information available in Lucknow, On April 29, a tanker carrying chemical got stuck in the muddy route near Bagpur-Tanda in the Swar area. While, a JCB machine tried to pull it out, the knob of the tanker got damaged and the chemical fell and accumulated in the near-by pit.

“Since the chemical looked like water, nobody took it seriously,” District Magistrate Niteshwar Kumar said. “Those who fell in the mud even tried to clean themselves with the chemical, thinking it was water. But after some time, they had burning sensation and developed blisters,” Inspector AA Zaidi of Swar police station added.

Though the Rampur DM claimed that he was not informed about any of the injured losing eyesight, ASP Prabal Pratap Singh said only four persons were blinded in the mishap.