Govt’s distress call service rescues patient in Kokernag

Kokernag, Jan 21: The government’s distress call service came to the rescue of a patient from a remote village of Kokernag area in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.
A 16-year-old female patient from the Ahlan Gadool village, some 13 kilometres away from Kokernag, was on her way to the hospital when the ambulance got stranded in the snow.
An official said the hour-long rescue operation took place at midnight and the patient was successfully transported to the Sub-District Hospital in Kokernag.
Sub Divisional Magistrate, Kokernag Sarib Sahran told Rising Kashmir that they have categorised the distress calls into two groups for any incident.
“We have categorised the distress calls in two groups – delivery cases and non-delivery cases – for the effective and timely intervention regarding their care. This case was a non-delivery case where an ambulance had skidded off the road and got stuck in a drain,” he said.
We pressed into service of NHIDCL and they sent a JCB to pull it out of the drain in the middle of the night amid snowfall, the SDM said.
A health official said they received a distress call from Ahlan Gadool from a patient at 12 am who needed medical help and an ambulance was sent which unfortunately got stuck in snowfall at ‘Femo Curve’ on Gadool-Vailoo road.
“A JCB machine and a caterpillar (CAT) were sent by the administration to help the ambulance,” he said, adding that the patient was having abdominal pain.
The Mechanical Engineering Department (MED) Kokernag and NHIDCL provided the best possible efforts during the night and brought the patient to the hospital, the official said, adding that the patient is doing well and is admitted to the hospital.