Unnao rape case: No end to wait outside Lucknow trauma centre

LUCKNOW: “Did she open her eyes? Did she speak?” The mother of the Unnao rape victim had only this fervent query to the doctors at the trauma centre of the King George Medical University (KGMU) in Lucknow on Wednesday evening after returning from the cremation of her sister-in-law in Unnao who had died in the road accident on Sunday.

This has been the family’s persistent question sitting outside the third floor ‘Critical Care Unit’ (CCU) of the trauma centre as the 19-year-old victim has been unconscious and on life-support continuously for the past four days since the accident.

“She is motionless,” said her younger cousin, breaking down. Sandeep Tiwari, the in-charge of the trauma unit, told ET why this is so. “She has gone into a state of deep shock due to the severe injuries. The injury to the right side of her chest is serious. Her right collar bone is fractured, her right scapula (shoulder blade) is fractured, her jaw is fractured and her right thigh bone is fractured. There has been lot of internal bleeding due to these injuries. The CT scan shows no serious injuries to her head but we cannot speak yet on any diffused injuries,” Tiwari told ET, adding, “There is a very slight improvement in her parameters today (Wednesday). But she is still very critical.” The family fears the worst.

The family’s lawyer, Mahendra Singh, has shown some movement in his limbs and was taken off the ventilator for 10 hours on Tuesday before being put back on it again, but the girl has not been put off the ventilator so far.

Tiwari said it is a multi-day process where a patient is taken off the ventilator for some hours as he can breathe on his own and the duration is increased over days.

“We are hoping for that stage to come soon for the girl too,” he said. A team of specialists is attending to her in the 20-bed CCU, said to be the best facility in UP for trauma, accident and bone fracture cases, in an otherwise typically over-crowded government hospital.

A dozen policemen are present outside the unit as political delegations keep streaming in all day but are now not allowed to enter the CCU. Media’s entry to the CCU has also been stopped after the first day. Families of the girl and Singh squat on the floor outside, in wait. “My son, if he regains consciousness, can reveal all as he was driving the car,” Mahendra’s father Bahadur Singh told ET.

Both families do not seem inclined to shift the patients to Delhi. The girl’s cousin said her only hope is now in the Supreme Court which will hear the case on Thursday.

“They killed her father, they raped her and now they have silenced her for the last four days after she had knocked on every door this month in the police department, the Uttar Pradesh government and even the SC, saying we were being threatened by the MLA’s men. We don’t wish to lose her. We will fight,” she said. Meanwhile, the long wait continues at the trauma unit.