When stray dogs tear your flesh into shreds .. ... Death stares deep into your eyes !!!
   Date :26-Jun-2024

When stray dogs  
 
 
 
By Vijay Phanshikar
 
 
It was morning as usual -- the constitutional walk with a friend in Kannamwar Nagar. And then a roaring and scowling stray dog pounced upon Shubhangi and a couple of other stray dogs pulled her down on the road. The beasts stood all over her, and tore deep into her hands and body at several places. She shouted, screamed for help. Her friend, who too had crashed to the ground, got up and pelted stones at the beasts and somehow managed to scare them away. Shubhangi (her real name) got up with her deep wounds bleeding profusely. She wanted help. At that early morning hour, there were no autorickshaws etc around. There were no people, too. And, as luck would have it, she did not have her cell-phone with her. So, with the friend’s help, Shubhangi made that one-plus kilometer of road back home with great difficulty, and also managed to climb 40-plus steps up the flight of stairs. Seeing her in that condition, her husband almost fainted. This terrible incident took place on June 13, 2024. The husband managed to rush Shubhangi to a nearby medical practitioner -- who advised him to rush his wife to a government facility immediately where she could get a better and finer help. The husband rushed her to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in MIHAN -- where began a very difficult medical battle to save Shubhangi’s life.
 
Life?
Yes, very much so. For, the dogs’ poison had seeped deep into her body at several places. Shubhangi was on the border of fainting. The doctor’s record stated: “Case of dog bite cat-3 and multiple lacerated wounds over the upper and lower limb. .. Patient given rabies lg ... wound cleaned and dressing done. ...” The doctors started the most painful exercise of sucking out the poison from the wounds with the help of needled syringes, and giving her medicinal injections. It was painful beyond limit. With family standing around, all Shubhangi could remember to do was to chant Shri Ram Raksha stotram as well as the mantra of Gajanan Maharaj -- Gana Ganaat Botey ...! Even as doctors struggled with her condition, Shubhangi did realise that there was a soft but invisible hand caressing her head and forehead.The ensuing treatment was really, really very tough on her -- and on the family. Her husband, her daughter and son-in-law, and her brother were there.
 
The doctors struggled to comfort her from the “third grade” dog-bites that had pushed Shubhangi to a near comatose condition. She thought of her son and daughter-in-law who were in Germany. And in a couple of days, both the kids stood in front of her -- giving her a happy surprise and joy. The whole family now was with her. Some hours later, when she started feeling slightly better, Shubhangi’s family shifted her to another hospital where she took her time to recover at least partially. In those terrible moments, Shubhangi proved to be a woman of great courage and fortitude. She showed the strength to rise to her feet and walk back home and climb those difficult flights of stairs. And even in that condition, she kept writing the account of her ordeal -- so that others would know what she suffered from. Her account -- written in smooth and classic Marathi -- should be treated as a document of human strength.
Nagpur has seen many such attacks by stray dogs on innocent, unsuspecting people on the roads. There has been a major people’s outcry and media coverage, too, on these incidents. Yet, the administration does not seem to have woken up from its sweet slumber. In one incident, a woman on a two-wheeler was attacked by stray dogs, and she fell down to break her leg. In another incident of attack of stray dogs, a woman was reported to have crashed almost on the pointed ends of steel rods that were lying by the roadside near a construction site. Yet, a third reported incident involved a 72-year-old woman having been attacked by as many as six stray dogs around the same area where Shubhangi was attacked. Those beasts actually drew lumps of flesh from the unfortunate senior citizen woman’s body. Her relatives and even doctors feared that she may not survive the attack and the scare.
 
Some people have complained that the stray dog squad of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation habitually picks up stray dogs from one area and releases those beasts, say five kilometers away at any place. In Kannamwar Nagar, the stray dogs are from such categories. A quick and easy solution to the problem may not be available, all right. Yet, the common people also do not see or sense an urgent response from the civic administration to the growing menace. Possibly, a better response may come only if a political leader or a bureaucrat is attacked by stray dogs !!! -- if one is allowed to indulge in such a luxury of wild (and uncouth) imagination ...!!!