CHENNAI: An elderly woman, believed to be in her late 80s, miraculously survived for nearly 12 hours throughout Sunday night inside a dry well into which she accidentally fell near her house at Ramapuram. 

D Saraswathi* (name changed on request), living alone in her house at Bajanai Koil Street, was headed to her neighbour’s house around 7 pm when she is believed to have slipped and fallen into the open well. 

Around 6 pm on Sunday a neighbour visited Saraswathi in her house and gave her coffee. “A little later, she stepped out of her house to return the tumbler to the neighbour when she apparently took the wrong direction due to her poor eyesight and stepped into the open well,” said a relative, who was taking care of the elderly woman at the Government Royapettah Hospital, on Tuesday.

Saraswathi, who does not have sound memory and has poor eye vision, says that all along night, she thought she was sitting inside some pit and was hoping for someone to come to her rescue.

“Another neighbour went to her house to give dinner on Sunday night. But they assumed that she had gone out,” said the relative. All through night, Saraswathi was inside the well and only around 7 am when the light came, she started crying for help.

The neighbours, who went to her house to give her breakfast, found her missing and was looking around when they heard some noises and peeped into the well. Fire service personnel, who reached the spot a little later, found Saraswathi still conscious.

“We made her sit in a chair and puller her out. She had suffered injuries on her back, but was well conscious,” said a fire and rescue personnel who was involved in the operation on Tuesday morning.

Saraswathi, a widow with no children, has been living in the house alone for the last four years. A few of her relatives nearby and the neighbours are providing her food. She was not aware of her correct age and her relative believes she must be between 89 and 90 years.

“Even until six months ago she use to cook her own food and visit people. Recently her eyesight became poor and she was largely confined to the house and the neighbours would visit and give her food,” said Saraswathi’s relative.

The Royalanagar police are investigating to find out who had left the well open.