NEW DELHI: Union minister Gopinath Munde's liver was ruptured in the road accident and he suffered a cardiac arrest due to shock, as per preliminary postmortem report by a team of doctors at AIIMS here.
"His liver was ruptured which caused internal bleeding. Due to the sudden shock/impact, he then suffered cardiac arrest. None of the external wounds were fatal enough to cause death," AIIMS sources said.
Munde's postmortem was conducted by a medical board at AIIMS after which his body was taken to BJP headquarters at 11 Ashoka Road.
At around 12:40 PM, an open army truck which had Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Harsh Vardha and Munde's family left the hospital followed by an ambulance carrying Munde's body.
Munde, who made his entry into the Union Cabinet for the first time last week, was on his way to the airport when his car was hit by another vehicle at Prithviraj Road-Tughlak road roundabout in the heart of the capital.
Brother-in-law of late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, Munde is survived by his wife and three daughters, one of whom is an MLA from Parli in Maharashtra's Beed district.
Munde was brought to the emergency department of Jai Prakash Narain Apex Trauma Centre, AIIMS, at 6:30 AM by his personal assistant and driver, Dr Amit Gupta of the Trauma Centre told reporters.
Gupta said Munde was sitting in the backseat of his car which was hit by another car or any other vehicle at around 6:20 AM from the side he was sitting. "On his arrival at the Trauma Centre, there was no spontaneous breathing, no blood pressure, no pulse, no cardiac activity. So immediately Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) was started and continued for the next 15 minutes. Despite resuscitative measures, Munde could not be revived and was declared dead at 7:20 AM," said Gupta.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan later said Munde's cervical spine was fractured at C1 (first vertebra) and C2 (second vertebra) due to which oxygen supply to his brain and lungs may have been cut off.
"The major thing that must have cost him very heavily was a fracture of the cervical spine at C1 and C2," said Vardhan, himself an ENT surgeon Explaining the possible cause of Munde's death, he said in case of fracture at C1 and C2, the blood supply to the brain stem gets cut off due to damage to the vertebral artery.
Vardhan said Munde's liver had tear at 2-3 places and there was one-and-half litres of blood in his abdomen because of the injury.
Also Read: