Victims come to grips with limb loss ,depression

Victims come to grips with limb loss,depression

Sumitra Deb Roy | TNN

Mumbai : Sahadev Bhuvad (56) is barely in his senses,but alert enough to understand that he has lost his right leg.His son Tushar said Bhuvad has been crying incessantly after the surgery,depressed that his life has changed forever.
Like Bhuvad,there are six victims who have lost one or more limbs in the 13 /7 blasts.Their families have not even started coming to terms with what hit them.
Bhuvads wife Sangeeta fainted on Friday after seeing him in the ICU of
Harkisondas Hospital.Tushar said her blood pressure dipped instantly and she had to be rushed to the hospitals casualty ward.She could not bear to see my father without a leg, he said.The Bhuvads,who live in Bhayander,are having sleepless nights thinking about their future.He (Sahadev ) was the sole breadwinner of our family.I can never fit in his shoes, said Tushar,tears welling in his eyes.Bhuvad has worked at a jewellery store at Zaveri Bazar for 12 years.Another victim,Pintu Yadav (31 ),who worked in a jewellery shop,lost his right foot.His family is devastated.His mother is inconsolable.But we are happy he is alive, said his cousin Santosh.We are worried how Pintu will come to terms with the loss. Victim Dinesh Majhi,too,lost a foot.He was near Panchratna Towers at Opera House when the blast took place.Besides severing his foot,the blast fractured his right leg and hand,and back.Saifee Hospital assistant director Dr S J Bapai called his case complicated.
Mental health experts say tremendous family support and rigorous medical counselling are required to help the victims come to terms with limb loss.Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Dr Mangal Parihar,who performed the amputations at Harkisondas,said healing of the physical wounds alone would take about four months.The question of a prosthetic limb comes much later.Initially,its family support,medicines and physiotherapy that they need.
Some victims,like Hiralal Kamath (35 ),face an equally uncertain future though their body parts are intact.Splinters from the Zaveri Bazar bomb damaged his spinal cord and lungs.Doctors who operated on him at J J Hospital said he has lost sensation below the waist and has become a paraplegic.