Infant rescued from 60-feet deep borewell after 2 days

After 47-hours of intense operation, rescuers this evening finally managed to pull out the 18-month old boy who had fallen inside a two-feet wide and 60-feet deep uncovered borewell in Haryana’s Hissar.

The condition of the toddler, Nadeem Khan, was stable after he was pulled out. He was immediately rushed to the nearby advanced child care hospital where doctors are examining his health.

The first images of the boy’s miraculous rescue by Army and teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) two days later invited strong applause from hordes of villagers who had gathered at the accident site and even assisted in the rescue operation.

On Wednesday evening, Nadeem while playing near his settlement, fell into the open borewell and slipped 60-feet down to the bottom. When parents failed to locate their child, they pressed the panic button which is when the villagers and family located that the boy trapped in the pitch-dark bottom of the borewell.

Rescuers dug a massive crater some 20-feet away from the main borewell where the child had fallen. Earth-movers and drilling machines were pressed into action. A tunnel was then made connecting to the borewell to rescue the boy.

His survival is nothing short of a miracle, given that the boy at 18-months of age without his mother for days would have struggled to consume whatever was dropped from the top. A smarty night vision camera was all-time in a position to monitor the boy’s movement. An oxygen pipeline was dropped down to the bottom to ensure smooth breathing. The exhausted child would often fall asleep and would not be disturbed by rescuers to avoid any panic by the child. The incident took place in Balsamand village of Hissar.

Initial unsuccessful attempts were made by rescuers to pull the child using a net. The plan had to be aborted after the child got stuck. Overwhelmed, the boy’s father and labourer Azam Khan and his family expressed gratitude to rescuers.

Uncovered borewells reflect official apathy. In 2006, five-year-old Prince hogged national limelight after he fell into a borewell in a village in Kurukshetra and was pulled out safely nearly 48 hours later.