I was th PMO (principal Medical Officer) of INS Vikrant from 03 Jan 1990 till 20 Dec 1991 and had a great time of my life.Probably a lot of power fro a young officer of age 25.
A few interesting first hand stories I wish to pen down.
I still wonder that so many instances were seen by me then were taken as normal.Now after retirement I realize that life in Navy was not as safe and secure as I feel today in civil life.
Another instance was when we were sailing about 1000 NM(nautical miles)(about 1840 kms) west of Mumbai on exercise.We were doing exercise with submarine and aircrafts.During one exercise we had got batteries from a submarine INS Shishumar or(?Shankush) fro charging and given them new charged batteries.The submarine again dived back underwater.One of our sailor in charge of recharging the batteries opened the battery acid chamber.The sea was rough and there was a lot of pitching(up and down movements) and rolling.When he was inspecting the acid chamber suddenly the ship hit a wave and the sulphuric acid in the battery chamber spilled over into the sailor's eye.He had severe burns in his right eye and came running to me in the sick bay(dispensary in ship is called sick bay).I had never seen or even thought of sulphuric acid burns(for that matter any acid burns in eyes).I at first was totally confused and flabbergasted But my basics were reasonable.So I promptly washed his eyes with two bottles of saline.But the sailor was in deep pain and I had no instruments to even examine the eyes properly other than a torch. I just had Chlorocort (chloromycetin and cortisone) eye ointment which i put in his both eyes, gave him a calmpose tablet and went to meet captain.We had 6 Sea king helicopters on board.When I requested the captain that I need to urgently evacuate this sailor to INHS Asvini(The naval hospital at Colaba Mumbai).Captain R Ganesh told me that Doc the helicopters have a range of 500 miles(nautical).TO launch a helicopter he will have to come close to mumbai by another 500 miles. so @ 20 knots of speed of INS Vikrant it will take at least 24 hrs to close within 500 miles of mumbai.So he will not be able to launch it for next 24 hrs at least.With desperation I told him that if i could look after him for 24 hrs then there is no need to send him to mumbai.So he said then look after him and thank you very much.
Now I was in a stupid situation that I had a patient with sulphuric acid burns in eyes with no help whatsoever.I had a total experience of 2 years after MBBS.No medicine other than chlorocort,No one to consult(No telephone/internet,no book of ophthalmology to consult.On top of that all the sailors had a lot of faith-DOCTOR SAAB THIK KAR DENGE(Doctor will get you alright).
My worries were if his lower eyelid get stuck to the eyeball he will have diplopia(double vision) when he will look up.Fortunately he did not have burns to his cornea.I just kept putting the chlorocort ointment every three hours and kept his eyes clean.I was also praying throughout as a diplopia could mean end of his job.You really feel helpless i these situations.
Finally when we reached mumbai after four days I took him to the ophthalmologist as INHS Asvini he was surprised that the patient had almost healed wound in his lower eyelid.I heaved a sigh of relief and the sailor was telling the ophthalmologist that I am alright and my doctor was unnecessarily worried.
No of times I have felt this type of helplessness during my career but these leave permanent memories whihc you cherish even today.
No comments:
Post a Comment