BHUBANESWAR: The wounds on Priyadarshini Paul’s body would heal but memories of the catastrophic landslide in Wayanad that killed her husband, Dr Bishnu Chinara, will never fade. The trauma, too, would have stayed had it not been for a stranger who helped her overcome.
Amidst the spectre of devastation, the only hope that Baripada’s Priyadarshini saw was in Sania, an 18-year-old resident of Kalpetta in Wayanad. Not only did Sania get a traumatised Priyadarshini to speak but also took care of her till she was discharged from the Moopen’s Medical College at Wayanad on Saturday.
Priyadarshini reached Odisha on the day while her husband’s mortal remains were brought back from Wayanad to his home in Choudwar in an ambulance.
On Tuesday, Linora, the homestay in the tourist town of Chooralmala where the couple stayed, was flattened and both Priyadarshini and Dr Chinara were swept away in torrents of muddy water and boulders.
At around 2 am, Priyadarshini heard a loud noise and woke up to see water entering the room. “She woke her husband up but within minutes, water and boulders gushed in and they were swept away. Priyadarshini found herself on the verandah of a school in the wee hours of Tuesday while Bishnu was untraceable. She was rescued by locals,” said Harish Paul, her father.
Sania was in the Moopen’s Medical College for her mother’s surgery when the injured survivors including Priyadarshini were rushed in. “A majority of them were locals with someone by their side but there was no one for Priyadarshini. She was covered in mud and had wounds all over her body. After some checkups in the emergency area, she was brought to the general ward. She was traumatised and could not speak. Language was a barrier too,” Sania told this paper.
Finding her alone, Sania initiated an interaction with her in Hindi and the latter responded with tears. Priyadarshini told her that she was from Odisha and her husband was missing. With her help, Priyadarshini contacted her family who reached Wayanad the next day.
With doctors and nurses busy attending all the injured, Sania decided to attend to Priyadarshini while also taking care of her ailing mother. She fed her, gave medicines and stayed by her side through all the tests.
“She was in a lot of pain, both physically and mentally. I kept speaking to her so that she would share her feelings and overcome the trauma. Her father and brother too broke down many times,” said Sania, who had just completed her Plus II. Thanking Sania for her acts of kindness in the face of adversity, Harish said she has become family. “Despite being a stranger, she took care of my daughter like someone her own while her mother was waiting in the same hospital for a surgery,” he said.