Humane gesture: Gadchiroli police airlift rare blood group in chopper to revive new mom

Mumbai: In a humanitarian operation, the Gadchiroli Police in Maharashtra airlifted a rare blood group type to help revive a woman who had delivered a baby two days ago in Bhamragad, a top official said here on Wednesday.

The woman, identified as Mantoshi Gajendra Chaudhary (24), hails from Arewada village in Bhamragad taluka in the tribal-dominated and Maoist-infested district, large parts of which are currently in the grip of incessant rain and floods.

According to Gadchiroli Superintendent of Police Neelotpal, the Bhamragad region has been virtually cut-off due to the heavy rain, making transportation and communication difficult.

Late on September 8, when Mantoshi went into labour, the local health officials waded through waist-deep water with help from the State Disaster Relief Force (SDRF) and somehow took her to the Bhamragad Rural Hospital where she safely deliver a baby on Monday.

However, the new mom suffered heavy loss of blood during delivery for which she urgently needed blood transfusion of at least one bag to help stabilise her frail health and revive her post-delivery.

The matter got further complicated as the patient’s blood group is the rare 'B-Negative', available in barely 2 per cent of the population, and hence not easily available in most medical facilities.

Inquiries by the medics in Bhamragad revealed that there was only one bag of the rare B-Negative type available in the entire district, at the Gadchiroli District Hospital.

This proved a challenging task as owing to incessant rain and floods, most roads to and from Bhamragad were blocked, but the local health officials made frantic efforts to procure the priceless blood bag at any cost.

The Gadchiroli District Hospital made an attempt to rush the blood bag to Bhamragad by road, around 175 km away, on Monday.

Even that effort failed as most roads were in a terrible state, submerged several inches or feet, so the mission was finally aborted. Also, it was not possible to dispatch the bag by boat due to the raging floods, Neelotpal said.

As the patient, her family members and the medics waited and hoped for some miracle, the rain stopped and the weather suddenly cleared on Wednesday morning, prompting the authorities to launch another attempt to send the prized blood bag to Mantoshi.

“Fortunately, we had a helicopter which was airworthy, and we decided to deploy it to render humanitarian assistance. The chopper flew around 100 km or for 30 minutes, delivered the blood bag to the patient party, and returned safely from Bhamragad,” Neelotpal told IANS.

Mantoshi's condition stabilised soon after the blood transfusion. She is now in a position to take care of her baby with her overjoyed family besides her.

Meanwhile, district authorities said the flood situation in southern Gadchiroli remains grim with the district disaster management and police working in coordination to shift the tribals and villagers to safer places and prevent any loss of lives.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: qnajmi@yahoo.com)