3-yr-old dies as ambulance runs out of oxygen;  driver abandons vehicle, flees

ADILABAD : A three-year-old boy died as a private ambulance, in which he was being shifted to Hyderabad from here, allegedly ran out of oxygen on Monday.  The driver fled after stopping the ambulance near a Public Health Centre midway but the boy died before he was shifted back to the district headquarters hospital in Adilabad.Shaik Faizan of Islamnagar in the Echoda mandal headquarters town suffered critical injuries on Sunday evening when he was hit by an autorickshaw while playing near his house. He was admitted to the Rajiv  Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS).  However, as his condition worsened on Monday, doctors asked the boy’s parents to shift him to Hyderabad for better treatment.

The family members hired a private ambulance to shift  the boy to Hyderabad, which is nearly 300 km away from RIMS in Adilabad.  After travelling for 30 km, the driver noticed that the oxygen in the ambulance was in short supply and the boy was struggling to breathe. The driver drove the ambulance to Echoda PHC where he abandoned the vehicle and fled, fearing that he might be attacked. The shocked family members hired another vehicle to shift Faizan back to RIMS here but by the time they reached RIMS, Faizan was dead.  

The angry family members staged a protest demanding action against the ambulance driver. They alleged that the  driver had not told them about the shortage of oxygen in the vehicle.
Based on a complaint lodged by the boy’s father Shaik Shakeer, police registered two cases, one against the autorickshaw driver who caused the accident and the other against the ambulance driver for his negligence. The investigating was in progress, police said.