These volunteers saved a veggie vendor in critical condition

Two volunteers saved a 56-year-old vegetable vendor’s life after learning from their families that he was not seen for days.

Since Hassan, a Bommanahalli resident, was not seen selling vegetables in the area for days, volunteers Ankita Borthakur and Nadeem searched for him and found him fighting for his life in Nimhans.

"My mother casually mentioned that our vegetable vendor was missing for a few days. Unaware of his whereabouts, I searched for two days just to check if he was alright,” Nadeem said.

To his misfortune, Nadeem found Hassan admitted to Nimhans after a brain stroke, besides testing positive for Covid-19 and experiencing severe breathing difficulties.

Since Nimhans ran out of ventilators at the peak of the pandemic, Nadeem reached out to his fellow volunteer Ankita seeking a bed for Hassan. Since their repeated social media alerts failed to find a bed, Nadeem went to St John’s to check the availability of beds there.

"After the initial check-up at St John’s, we were told that a HDU bed (which was available) would not suffice and an ICU bed was absolutely essential,” Ankita, a final-year BA student at Mt Carmel College, said.

They succeeded in convincing the doctors to provide an ICU bed in the emergency ward and got a CT scan done, which showed Hassan had suffered a double brain stroke and had severe lung infection.

The effort of Sanjeev Gupta, inter-state council secretariat, Ministry of Home Affairs, resulted in securing an ICU bed at Victoria Hospital.

Hassan was immediately shifted to the government facility, where doctors did a tracheotomy and brain surgery and put him on ventilator for a few days.

Last Monday evening, Hassan was declared Covid-free and on Tuesday, the volunteers made arrangements for him to be shifted to a different facility so that the ICU bed at Victoria could be made available for other patients.

“Hassan’s wife and son had also tested positive for Covid-19, but now they have recovered,” Ankita said. “Hassan came on a video call from home and it felt good to see the entire family recovering well and happy.

“I’m glad we were able to help a poor family and our timely intervention got them proper medical care. If not for the alert of our family, we would never have known about Hassan and his family, which would only have added to their distress,” the volunteers said with satisfaction.