'The people who are missing are the people who used to work in the mess.'
Psychiatrist Dr Minakshi Parikh in April took over as the dean of the 1871-established B J Medical College, attached to the Civil Hospital, located in Asarwa, north Ahmedabad, a little south of the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel international airport.
Just ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit she calmly gave Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com a quick update of the situation at Meghani, where the London Gatwick-bound Air India flight 171 crashed into a medical college campus building.
What is the situation like exactly?
I'll just give you a very brief report on this. It was a disaster and there was a lot of chaos.
But finally, after calling up each and every student of all years, first, second, third, final and the interns, and the super specialists, who were living there, what we have found is that we have lost two students from the first year, two students from the second year. And the wife of one of the residents doing neurosurgery. And her brother, who was visiting her, who was also a doctor.
The resident was also living in the hostel?
The wife was living in the hostel. She was going to the mess and her brother had also come to visit her, who also happened to be a doctor.
So, six casualties are confirmed from our campus. And a few are missing.
Those who are under treatment are all stable.
The people who were injured were said to be quite seriously injured. But you're saying that they are doing fine this morning?
They are doing better. They're all doing better today. At least they are stable.
And how many are missing about?
The people who are missing are the people who used to work in the mess.
So, the plane came in and hit the mess was on the ground floor?
Ground and first floor. It was just a two-storey building. Ground and first.
There are no rooms where people stay in this building? This is just a mess?
No, no, it was just a mess. There were no residents staying there.
And if somebody was coming or going into that mess building, you wouldn't know, right?
Yes. Who can tell who was going or coming and who was just kind of incidentally there? We have no way of knowing, but we have called each and every one of our students.
Where were you when this happened and what did it sound like? It must have been terribly frightening.
I was in the office and we were doing some work. Someone came and told me that there has been a plane crash. We immediately went there. The smoke was so thick, the visibility was zero.
But you didn't hear anything as such while you were in your office?
No, not in the college. We could not hear the crash because this mess happens to be roughly one-and-a-half to two kilometres away from us.
It would have been complete chaos when you showed up?
Yes, but I really need to hang up now. Thank you.
What was the first thing you had to do when you reached there?
The first thing was making sense of what had happened and the enormity of what had happened.
And then facilitating the rescue, then coming to the trauma and setting up the control room. It was all that. The whole team was on their toes and everybody worked through the day and night and we've tried to do our best.
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