Published On : Mon, Jan 30th, 2017

Off duty… but ‘on humanity’; Nurse saves dying man on city road

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Nagpur: When you let off the the word ‘duty’ from all what you do, it eventually turns into humanity. This was proved in letter and spirit by a nurse who was off-duty but certainly on-humanity. She saved a road accident victim’s life by putting her Cardiac Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) skills to use. Jayshree Kawdkar, a nurse at Lata Mangeshkar Hospital, was honoured by municipal commissioner Shravan Hardikar for saving the life of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) staffer Krishna Gedam, who was bleeding to death after an accident.

Kawdkar is among 500 nurses from the college who have undergone training in Basic Life Support (BLS) and CPR under an initiative by HERD Foundation. Finishing her evening duty on December 27, Kawdkar had checked out from the hospital and was on her way back home when she encountered a man lying on his back beside the road near YCCE College. The man had been hit by an unknown vehicle.

She said, “When I went near him, I saw he was in terrible condition, I couldn’t feel his pulse. He had already lost a lot of blood from his head wound. I managed to turn him over and started giving him CPR.”
She said, “People passing by were not ready to touch him; helping was out of the question. After giving him CPR for 15 minutes, I managed to get help from a tempo and carried him to Lata Mangeshkar Hospital.”
“I did not call the ambulance since it would have taken 30 minutes, while the man needed to be operated urgently. At that time I wasn’t sure if I was taking the right decisions. All I could keep thinking was I had to do my best or he was going to die in front of me. After all, I chose this profession to save lives,” said Kawdkar, who has been working at the hospital for the last eight years.

Gedam was later shifted to Care Hospital and discharged on Friday. “He has been kept on medication for his brain injury, and did not have to undergo any major surgery,” said Gedam’s nephew Vishal Kadu, who is a security guard at Lata Mangeshkar Hospital.

This is the second such incident at Lata Mangeshkar. In December 2015, another nurse, Kalpana Fulzele, gave CPR to an accident victim for about 30 minutes before an ambulance reached. Fulzele had also received the same training.

HERD Foundation managing director Dr Suchika Deshmukh told TOI, “We started this project in January 2015, and have till date trained 6,000 people. Doctors have received Advance Life Support Training (ALS), while nurses, Class IV employees and even common citizens from Nagpur have been given the Basic Life Support (BLS) Training.”

Deshmukh said, “Our main agenda in imparting this training is that no one should die because of lack of first responders.”