PUNE: Suvarna
Mujumdar's injuries couldn't have been more deadly. The kite flying string severed her neck muscles and badly damaged the windpipe and main blood vessels, including the jugular that carries blood from the brain to the heart.
The 42-year-old woman, who suffered a deep cut in her throat by the glass-coated string on February 7, succumbed to her injuries on Sunday morning. The string had slit the woman's neck to such an extent that she suffered huge blood loss and her haemoglobin level dropped to 3g per decilitre as against the normal of 12-14g per decilitre within an hour of the accident.
By the time she was rushed to Surya Sahyadri Hospital around 6.30pm on Wednesday, she had slipped into coma. "The blood loss had caused irreversible damage to her brain," said the hospital's chief surgeon, Jaisingh Shinde.
"Her heart rate had dropped and she suffered cardiac arrest within five minutes of admission. We revived her, gave her blood transfusion and repaired her muscles and windpipe. But she was on ventilator support right since admission. We could revive her heart, but not her brain. She finally suffered a multi-organ failure and died around 6.30am on Sunday," the doctor said.
Experts said people moving on two-wheelers and injured by glass-coated string are more likely to suffer significant blood loss. Mujumdar, too, suffered the injuries while riding her two-wheeler to work.
Last month, a two-and-a-half-year-old boy sustained severe injuries on his left eye and face by a similar string as his uncle was taking him to a garden at Kalewadi on a bike. He too had bled profusely and doctors had to apply around 30-35 stitches to treat his eyelid. The thread had left the nasal bone and the bones near his eyes exposed. The blood loss was so severe that the boy's haemoglobin levels had dropped to 6g per decilitre .
Nikunj Sharma, head of public policy, People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals, said, "The authorities need to understand that not only nylon kite string, the cotton manja is equally dangerous. If a biker is travelling at a speed of 40km per hour and suffers a manja cut, the injury can be deadly.
(Inputs by Aishwarya Upadhye)
