BENGALURU: Just a day before his death, Poorna Chandra, 32, a civil engineer, went to Mandya’s Pandavapura to see the girl whom he was supposed to marry soon. But he breathed his last on Wednesday at the stampede outside the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. His uncle Doresha, was seen searching for Chandra’s body at Bowring Hospital but later found him at Vydehi Hospital.
Ashwini, mother of 14-year-old Divyanshi, was inconsolable and unable to digest the death of her daughter. She was seen crying and requesting the medicos at Bowring Hospital not to cut open the skull and body of her daughter for postmortem. The little RCB fan, who was overwhelmed with her favourite cricket team’s victory, was dead for no fault of hers.
The mother of 22-year-old Shravan K T, a student of Dr Ambedkar Medical and Dental College, who wished to see her son as a doctor in the hospital, fell unconscious after she saw him dead.
In all. Bowring Hospital recorded six deaths, with 18 injured getting treated with complaints like bone fracture, head injury, and spine injury, among others. At Manipal Hospital (formerly Vikram Hospital) on Miller’s Road, 18-year-old student Chinmayi was said to have died while two more were getting treatment.
The wailing sirens of the ambulances filled the 1-km road stretch between M Chinnaswamy Stadium and Bowring Hospital.
Good Samaritans prevented more deaths
There were many good Samaritans who didn’t mind risking their lives to save others and helped prevent more deaths. People carried the injured and those gasping for breath on their shoulders.
An unknown youth rushed a girl, who was gasping for breath, on his two-wheeler to Bowring Hospital. Film artiste Mahesh KR said that while the crowd was getting overwhelming, with people falling on each other, he attempted to resist the pressure despite getting injured, ensuring that people next to him didn’t fall on others.
In the absence of any ambulance, it was Hoysala patrol vehicles that did the job. Namma Karnataka Sene leader Suresh Naik said he, along with the police, shifted the injured from Gate number 8 to 12, and from there, ambulances shifted the injured.
The 11 victims
Bhuvik, (20) engineering student
Sahana (19), engineering student,
KGF Poorna Chandra (32), civil engineer
Chinmayi (19), student
Divyanshi (13), student
Shravan KT (20), dental student, Chintamani
Devi (29), Andhra Pradesh
Shivling (17), Kannur, Kerala
Manoj (33) Akshatha, Mangaluru
One victim is yet to be identified