AMBALA: A four-year-old child died despite a 19-hour rescue operation after falling into a 220-foot-deep open borewell in Haryana’s Dhanaura village. The toddler was declared “brought dead” soon after being rescued from the shaft.The incident unfolded early Tuesday morning, prompting a massive multi-agency rescue operation involving the Indian Army, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and the local administration in a race against time to save the child.Rescue teams faced significant technical and environmental challenges throughout the operation. Water had seeped into the narrow borewell from a depth of around 60 feet, where the child was trapped. According to news agency ANI, as the water level gradually rose, the toddler continued to sink deeper into the shaft, making the rescue effort increasingly difficult.Continuous rainfall and unstable soil conditions repeatedly disrupted the rescue operation, compelling teams to alter their extraction strategy multiple times. “The child was stuck in the borewell, which was filled with water. The child was slowly sinking and the water was gradually rising. There were numerous challenges due to which we had to relaunch the operation again and again, and it went on for 18-19 hours,” said NDRF Assistant Commandant Anil Kumar, adding that teams did not observe any signs of life during the final stretch of the extraction.Rescue teams retrieved the four-year-old from the borewell after nearly 19 hours of continuous operations and rushed the child to hospital in an ambulance. However, doctors declared the toddler brought dead on arrival. “We started the examination of the child as soon as he was rescued… When we conducted an ECG at the hospital here, he was declared brought dead,” stated Dr. Rishipal, Medical Officer at the City Hospital. “The body of the child has been sent to the mortuary. The exact cause of death can only be determined after the post-mortem.”Authorities permanently sealed the open borewell in Dhanaura village after the rescue operation concluded.(With agency inputs)
