Tales of courage: Two Karnataka kids win National Bravery Awards

Two Karnataka kids — including 11-year-old Venkatesh who guided an ambulance on a submerged stretch of road during last year’s floods in north Karnataka — are among the 22 winners of this year’s Indian Council of Child Welfare National Bravery Awards.

The second recipient from Karnataka is nine-year-old Aarti Kiran Shet, who saved her two-year-old brother from a raging cow that gored her before being chased away.

Ten girls and 12 boys will receive the awards before the Republic Day.

Last year’s floods devastated many lives in north Karnataka. But it also produced a tale of exemplary courage.

Venkatesh, 11, a sixth standard student from Hire Rayanakumpi, Raichur district, whose village is on the banks of Krishna, saw an ambulance stuck on a waterlogged bridge in his flood-hit village.

The vehicle was carrying a dead body and four other individuals.

The driver, who was on transit from Jagatkal to Yadgiri, could not find the road because the flood water had engulfed everything.

Noticing the helplessness of the driver, the boy jumped into the water ignoring warnings and waded through it to reach the spot. He asked the driver to follow him as he knew where the road was and guided the vehicle to safety.

Nine-year-old Aarti, too, showed exemplary courage and presence of mind when she saved her brother from an angry cow.

When Aarti noticed the bovine trying to gore her brother on a tricycle near her home in Uttar Kannada district, she picked up her brother and ran towards a corner of her house.

She stood between the kid and the cow which gored her. On hearing her screams, her parents came rushing and saved her. The coveted Bharat award will be conferred upon 15-year-old Kerala boy Adithya K, who saved more than 40 lives when the tourist bus they were travelling in Nepal caught fire.

As fire and smoke began to spread inside the bus, the driver escaped. Noticing that passengers were trapped in the bus, Adithya broke the rear glass widow of the bus, creating an escape route. Within minutes, all 42 passengers escaped the bus, whose diesel engine subsequently exploded, turning the whole bus into a fireball.

Besides, 19 other kids from Kerala, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram have also been selected for the bravery award.

They will receive a medal, certificate, cash and financial assistance during their schooling as well as subsequent education up to graduation.