The Hindu : Front Page : Boy rescued from abandoned borewell after 10-hour ordeal

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Wednesday, Jan 30, 2008
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Boy rescued from abandoned borewell after 10-hour ordeal

Special Correspondent

Local police and officials started the rescue operation within one hour

A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE: Six-year-old Navanath Kamble trapped inside the abandoned borewell in Gulbarga district on Tuesday.

GULBARGA: The 10-hour long rescue operations to save six-year-old Navanath Kamble, who had slipped into a 40-foot-deep abandoned borewell in an agriculture field at Bhusnur in Aland taluk of Gulbarga district, ended on a happy note with the police and Fire and Emergency Services personnel scooping him out alive around 7.45 p.m.

It was a happy ending for the traumatised parents of Navanath who kept a continuous vigil near the abandoned borewell waiting for their only son to come out alive.

Sugulabai and Kashinath were seen hugging their son before the doctors provided the first aid and shifted him to the Government General Hospital in Gulbarga. It was an agonising 10-hour-drama at the remote agricultural field. Navanath and his friend Rakesh accompanied their parents to the field of Battarki Darga for cutting sugarcane. Navanath, who wanted to answer nature’s call, slipped into the borewell which was dug three days ago and abandoned after the drilling machine hit a rock at 40 feet. Rakesh tried to grab the hands of his friend.

The police began the rescue work within one hour, and Revenue Department officials rushed to the spot and started the operations without waiting for orders from their superiors. A parallel tunnel was dug and a horizontal tunnel was paved for 10 feet from the newly dug tunnel to fork out the boy caught at 21 feet dee[ in the borewell.

“He has been the apple of our eye and we loved him so much that we did not even send him to the school as we thought we would miss him during school hours and we took him wherever we went,” Ms. Sugulabai said.

Navanath, who fell into the borewell around 10.30 a.m., responded to the calls from his parents and relatives throughout the operations. Once he caught hold of the rope which was lowered into the borewell and was dragged up to 15 feet. But he slipped back unable to hold on to it.

A relieved Superintendent of Police Manish Kharbikar said: “We are happy that we could rescue the child and he is the second Prince for us.” (Prince who had fallen into a borewell in Rajasthan couple of years ago was rescued by the Army). The local officials rescued the boy before experts from Hatti could reach the spot.

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