Tragedy averted at South hospital after oxygen tanker leaks

MARGAO: A major disaster was averted at the South Goa district hospital, which has around 500 Covid-19 patients admitted, after a tanker carrying liquid oxygen leaked on Tuesday afternoon.
One worker suffered minor cold burn injuries.
The liquid oxygen tanker carrying 10,500 litres of oxygen that came in from Kolhapur began to leak after it entered the hospital compound and when a worker was fixing it to the pipe connected to the hospital’s 5,000 litre tank.
The hospital’s nodal officer, Dr Rajesh Patil told TOI that oxygen leaked from the tanker while it was at a considerable distance from the hospital building. “There was no interruption to the oxygen flow from our tank to patients. The leak was at the tanker end which was trying to refill our tank,” he said.
Fire services personnel on site received an emergency call around 2.30 pm that the tanker was leaking at the flange and began cooling operation around the surrounding area while seeking reinforcement from the Margao fire station.
“The hydrants on the hospital premises were utilised. The oxygen supply team from M/s Govind Poi, who were on the site, helped in arresting the leakage from the main outlet. Duty crew was kept on standby. The entire operation took approximately 30 minutes,” director of fire services Ashok Menon said.
The operation was completed around 3pm and the tanker was then reportedly taken by M/S Govind Poi to assess the problem.
“The state government has ensured that the fire and emergency services follow protocol to fight fire by placing fire fighting vehicles and personnel on 24 by 7 basis at government designated hospitals. This is for immediate handling of such extreme eventualities during the pandemic in view of the pressures on health infrastructure,” Menon said.
A health official said that tankers have been coming every alternate day and this is the first such incident. “It is an eye opener for the hospital. It was very risky and we were very lucky,” the official said, adding that the hospital has an engineer stationed during the day to monitor the gas pressure and other related issues.