Ludhiana, April 21
One-and-a-half-year-old Kulwinder Kaur was blue, slightly unconscious and gasping for breath when brought at Christian Medical College and Hospital on April 19, 2004. She was in a lot of respiratory distress and choking. Immediately she was rushed to the operation theatre, where bronchoscopy was performed and a brinjal stem was found lying in her windpipe.

The foreign body was large and taking it out from the narrow windpipe without damaging the vocal cords was indeed a difficult task. However, with the team effort, right expertise, skill and the best equipment available, the team of CMCH’s anaesthetist and paediatric surgeons managed to remove the stem and gave the child a new lease of life. Had the child not been brought immediately to CMCH, it could have cost her life. Some time had been wasted as the parents took her to a local hospital at Hoshiarpur where an ENT doctor couldn’t analyse the situation for two days. Then a senior doctor suggested to the parents that they should take the girl to some other hospital. Conclusively they brought the girl to CMCH where the experts efficiently carried out the procedure. But Kulwinder is not the only one who has approached CMCH in this condition. Several other such cases have successfully been carried out at the hospital.

Dr Rajeev Kapoor, Deputy Medical Superintendent, CMCH, claimed that CMCH was one of the few hospitals of northern India and probably the only hospital in Punjab, where bronchoscopy was successfully performed. Every year many children came to hospital with this problem of foreign bodies in their windpipe. The doctors here have been successfully removing the foreign bodies that could be potentially dangerous to life if not attended to immediately.

Ludhiana, April 21
Poor umpiring by one of the umpires in the crucial league match between Ludhiana and Minor Districts Zone-B of the Punjab State Inter-District Cricket Tournament (u-15 years), held here yesterday at the Satish Chander Dhawan Government College for Boys, cost to the hosts dearly as they lost the match by 60 runs.

Umpire Rajesh Diggia from Patiala was seen talking on his mobile phone while supervising the match. He also gave some controversial verdicts, which affected the outcome of the match. Resuming their overnight score of 20 for no loss, Ludhiana were cruising well at 86 for 1 when the umpire gave certain controversial decisions that sent the hosts reeling 94 for 6. Ludhiana skipper Gagandeep Dhand (50) and Sushyant Kohli (37) put up a brave face and helped their team reach a respectable total of 201 in 80 overs.

In spite of this defeat, Ludhiana, along with Minor Districts XI, Chandigarh and Patiala have qualified for the last four stage. The semifinal matches will be held from April 22.