Two nurses and five neighbors courageously faced the fire, endangering themselves to rescue five newborns following a devastating fire at the Baby Care New Born Hospital in Vivek Vihar, East Delhi, on Saturday night.
At nearly midnight, the neighborhood was startled by unexpected explosions. Vinay Narang, the leader of the C Block Residents Welfare Association (RWA), was on his way home when a neighbor contacted him. The caller informed Vinay about an explosion at the nearby small hospital on the main road. Vinay hurried back, parked his car, and sprinted to the scene without hesitation.
“I saw two nurses carrying a baby each, wrapped in bedsheets, in their hands. They were shouting for help,” he recalled. “I took one of the newborns from the nurses while Arunima carried the other. We rushed to my Ford Endeavor, which I had parked near my house, and I turned the AC on. We kept the babies inside, hoping the AC would help them.”
Upon learning from the nurses about other newborns still inside, Narang and Sharma were informed by a passing couple, who also witnessed the situation and stopped to offer assistance. Without hesitation, they hurried back to aid in the rescue efforts.
Singh said “The window glass had already been broken… it opened right inside the neonatal room… The babies were right there in those small enclosures, wrapped in white cloth. The ventilators were shut. There was so much smoke inside that I couldn’t breathe… Some of them (babies) were crying. I picked them up one by one and handed them to the nurses and other neighbors standing next to the ladder.”
At approximately 11:45 pm, the fire brigade arrived at the scene. A firefighter described the situation, noting the intense flames engulfing the two-floor building, which was wedged between larger four-story residential buildings. One team focused on dousing the fire, while another worked to enter the building swiftly. “The scale of the fire was such that it had started to engulf the neighboring buildings and an electricity pole. Once we extinguished the flames, we entered from the front,” said the man.
He said they didn’t know if the babies were alive or not. It was only later that they learned six of them didn’t make it.
