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CARE TODAY
LEST WE FORGET
MOBILITY MATTERS
CARE
TODAY spends Rs 3 lakh to help build for a disabled soldier a house that
is more accessible by road, preparing him for the challenges posed by
life outside the army
Sapper
Suresh Kumar of 2 engineers will never forget the chilly and fateful night
of February 28, 1999 on the Siachen glacier as part of Operation Meghdoot.
Everyone retired to their tents by about 9 p.m. As it used to happen often,
by next morning the tents were under heavy snow. Colleagues from the base
camp worked for hours and removed the snow by afternoon. But unlike in
the past, Kumar found a difference. He could not move his legs even a
bit inside the sleeping bag where he lay. Within minutes he knew what
had happened. Water had seeped into the sleeping bag. His limbs had suffered
frostbite. His world turned upside down.
Kumar remembers
the subsequent events in a daze. The helicopter that took three days to
reach their camp and airlift him, his days in the hospital at Purdapur
near Leh on Khardung La, the highest road on earth, two weeks in the Western
Command Hospital, Chandigarh, where his lower limbs were amputated. And
finally two more weeks in the Artificial Limb Centre, Pune, where he was
fitted with prosthetics.
Kumar was
then sent back to his family at Meppayur, a hilly village in the Kozhikode
district of Kerala. And that is where the challenges began-his tiny house
where his labourer father, mother and unemployed elder brother lived was
perched on a 25 ft-high hillock. There was not even a road to the point
from where the climb began. A temporary road was hurriedly constructed
for the "Siachen hero" by the local panchayat. But the climb
was too much and Kumar had to be virtually carried by his friends to his
house. Kumar told care today that the main thing he wanted urgently in
his life was a more accessible house on the side of the road so that he
would not have to depend on others to move about. "If I have a house
on the roadside and a three-wheeler scooter, I can come back to life,"
he hoped.
Now that
dream has come true. Kumar, who got a deskbound job at the MEG Centre
at Bangalore last November, sent care today the detailed plans for a 90
sq m house. He had received Rs 2 lakh from the Kerala Government as ex-gratia
payment for the loss of his limbs, an amount with which his father bought
a 20-cents plot on the side of the road. His proposed house was to cost
Rs 4.5 lakh. care today representatives met Kumar and worked out the details.
Cheques worth Rs 3 lakh were given to him over four months. Kumar raised
the rest of the cost of construction from loans, etc. The house was ready
by October this year. Kumar came from Bangalore to celebrate the house-warming,
bringing with him his new three wheeler too. "I'm thinking of naming
my house either care today or Meghdoot. care today, for it helped to make
my dream real and Meghdoot, for it has a special significance in my life.
Besides Operation Meghdoot, this three wheeler which has made me mobile
once again was purchased from a dealer named Meghdoot Motors!" says
Kumar, who plans to get married soon.
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