Agra, March 26
Defying all odds, a little girl miraculously survived a 27-hour ordeal after she was pulled out alive tonight from a 45-feet borewell where she was trapped in a dramatic rescue operation that also involved the Army.
“Vandana is hale and hearty,” Agra district magistrate Mukesh Kumar Mishram told reporters after the girl was brought out into the open from 45 feet below the narrow shaft where she got stuck.
The girl had slipped into the dry and abandoned pit which is about 180 feet deep while playing with her father in Hulaspura village in Agra district last evening. Personnel from the local police, special forces, fire brigade and the National Highway Authority were also involved in the delicate rescue efforts.
As thousands of onlookers waited with bated breath after Vandana was located below the borewell, she was brought out a little after 9 p.m. and was rushed in an airconditioned ambulance to the ICU of Era Medical college for observation.
Vandana looked normal but she may be suffering from dehydration, Mishram said, while doctors said she showed enormous grit to come out unscathed.
Officials said the borewell was abandoned after it was dug about a month back under a local MLA scheme.
Several cases of children falling into uncovered borewells have been reported from Kurukshetra, Ghaziabad, Ahmedabad, Raichur and Jaipur in the past couple of years.
In July 2006, a five-year-old boy Prince captured the imagination of the country when he survived a 50-hour ordeal after he fell into an open borewell in Kurukshetra in Haryana.
— PTI
