3-Year-Old, Rescued From Borewell In Gujarat Village, Dies In Hospital

A three-year-old girl, who fell at a depth of 30-feet into a borewell in Gujarat's Devbhumi Dwarka district, died at a hospital where she was rushed in an unconscious state after being rescued, officials said today.

The toddler fell into the open borewell located in Ran village at around 1 pm on Monday. She was taken out of the borewell in an unconscious condition at around 9.50 pm and rushed to a hospital in Jam Khambhalia town for treatment, they said.

The girl was brought out of the borewell after nine-hour-long rescue efforts involving personnel of the Army and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF). She was then alive but unconscious, officials said.

When the girl was brought to the general hospital in Jam Khambhalia, which is nearly 35 km from the site of the incident, she was declared dead, the medical facility's resident medical officer Dr Ketan Bharathi said.

"A paediatrician from the hospital was accompanying the medical team stationed at the site of the incident when the rescue operation was underway. As soon as the girl was brought out of the borewell, her treatment started while she was rushed to the hospital on an ambulance," Dr Bharathi said.

"We carried out the post-mortem and found asphyxia (a condition when the body is deprived of oxygen) as the cause of her death," he added.

The girl fell into the open borewell while playing, following which the Army and NDRF personnel made efforts to rescue her, Deputy Collector HB Bhagora said.

An NDRF official on Monday said that to rescue the girl, her hand was locked with a rope and an L-shaped hook was deployed to provide stability.

Parallel digging was also carried out, he added.

The girl's father worked at a windmill in the area, as per locals.

The borewell, located near the girl's house, was dug up long back but was later abandoned and left open, they said.

With the latest incident, the dangers posed by open and abandoned borewells have come to the fore again.

In June last year, a two-year-old girl slipped into a narrow borewell at Tamachan village in Jamnagar district and got stuck at a depth of 20-feet. She died despite hectic rescue efforts by multiple agencies for 19 hours.

In July 2022, a 12-year-old girl fell into a borewell at a village in Gujarat's Surendranagar district and got stuck at a depth of 60 feet, but was rescued nearly five hours later.

On June 9 in 2022, a two-year-old boy fell into a borewell at a farm in Surendranagar, following which a team of the Army, fire brigade, police and health officials rushed to the spot and rescued him.

In 2009, the Supreme Court issued guidelines to prevent fatal accidents of children falling into abandoned borewells.

The revised guidelines issued by the court in 2010 included setting up barbed wire fencing around the well during construction, using steel plate covers fixed with bolts over the well assembly and filling up of borewells from the bottom to the ground level.
 

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