Army airlifts pregnant woman from LoC to Srinagar

Srinagar: The Indian Army”s Snow Leopard Brigade on Thursday airlifted a pregnant woman stranded at Dawar, near Line of Control for last four days, to Srinagar for treatment. The critically ill woman is undergoing treatment at Lal Ded Hospital.

The Army said that on April 1, Dawar Army Camp of Snow Leopard Brigade received a requisition from the civil administration for evacuation of Zytoona Begum, resident of Satni village located very close to the Line of Control who had been critically ill.

“She was a case of molar pregnancy with excessive bleeding resulting in low haemoglobin and needed urgent surgery. She was under the close monitoring of civil and Army medical team at the Hospital at Dawar,” the force said.

It was decided to take Zytoona Begum to a bigger hospital. The Army swung into action and evacuated her from Army Helipad in Gurez on Thursday.

“At present, the Gurez Valley is cut off from the rest of the Kashmir Valley due to high snow levels at Razdan Pass. The prevailing bad weather conditions for the last four days did not afford any window of opportunity to the Army to evacuate the patient by air,” the force said.

For doing so, soldiers of Snow Leopard Brigade activated the Gurez Helipad at short notice. “Thereafter the critically ill patient was continuously monitored before she could be evacuated by helicopter,” the force added.

The threat of COVID-19 further added to the procedures of evacuation.

It further stated that Dawar has a civil hospital with limited advance diagnostic and treatment facilities.

In these difficult times of the corona pandemic, the medical team of Dawar Army Camp and Sub District Hospital in Gurez has achieved a high degree of cohesion and synergy with an aim to provide medical aid to locals and Army personnel alike.

With the pooled resources of the Army and civil administration, a quarantine facility has been created at Dawar in which five civilians who had recently returned from Bandipora have been kept.