At Dockyard dispensary

I was on an emergency duty at dockyard dispensary.At about 0030 hrs The colaba police got one naval commando (P G How- a sailor from Mizoram) with the complaint of being drunk and creating nuisance in public for medical examination.However being a maharashtrian I got talking to the police when I realized that the commando was being rounded up despite being innocent not involving in fight.In fact he had gone to bar to have one or two drinks when a fight burst out between two persons.He being a well built person and a commando decide to pacify the whole affair.During the commotion patroling police from Colaba police station arrived. The two fighting parties quickly disappeared and our friend being more simple person was caught up.Now the police got him to me for medical examination for being drunk.When I asked PG How he confessed of having consumed a bottle of beer,however he had no idea who were the fighting persons.
Now I used my uniformed status(You do your night duty in full uniform) to tell the police that I will take disciplinary action.Anyway the police were not interested in the naval person for obvious reasons that they just have to do procedural work without getting anything out of it..I signed and stamped on their papers of taking over the person.By this time It was about 0100 hrs.By this time the last boat going to Karanja(Uran) had already left.This would result in PG How being absent from duty without leave and would be liable for disciplinary action.I had to admit him in the dispensary for observation on diagnosis of altered behaviour and detain for night to save him form a punishment.
At about 0100 hrs VT sattion police got two naval persons with physical fight at VT (now CST)station for medical examination.The story was one of them was a sailor was going on leave by Mahanagari exp with his wife.The wife's boyfriend  (another sailor from navy) also reached.This resulted in fight between them.However the lady refused to identify the husband as her husband.The husband showed the police his tickets and his family i card to claim that he was her true husband.Police not knowing how to solve it got both the sailors for medical examination and palmed off them to me.I after their medical examination handed them over to naval police for further action.By this time it was about 0300 hrs.
Again I had to get up at 0600 hrs to discharge our friend PG How so that he could catch a boat to karanja.
Thus I could sleep for about 2.5 hrs yet not seen a single patient. 

LIFE ON VIKRANT II

As a doctor on Vikrant life was never dull.It is an aircraft carrier was acquired in 1961 and was standing in sea 24 x 7 thus corrosion is rampant.So the sailors have a constant job of painting the ship.One day before annual inspection one of our sailors was cleaning a small engine room compartment with thinner before repainting.suddenly lights went off.Our sailor being a sincere one decided to finish the job before lunch.He thus took a candle and matchstick.As soon as he lighted the matchstick the thinner which had evaporated inside the small closed compartment exploded resulting in 30% burns for the sailor.He was brought to me immediately.I simply covered his open wounds with sterile gauze, put an IV cannula to secure his vein and gave him a pethidine injection and transferred him to our Hospital INHS Asvini at Colaba.You should never try and remove clothes in burns case as the burnt clothes are sterilised by the flame.Always put up an IV line as the swelling of body makes passing a needle more and more difficult as time passes.
Similar case happened a few days later when one sailor had his one hand almost severed.he was standing at the quarterdeck(the back end of ship) and was observing the crane lowering the whaler(a small boat)The metal wire which was going down over the pully just snapped and came back like a whiplash.This sailor was just outside the line of the metal wire thus it just grazed his left arm and forehand and literally peeled the skin from mid arm to mid forearm.Had the wire hit him on his head he would have died and had it hit on his shoulder it would have dislocated his shoulder.I quickly put the skin back and bandaged it and dispatched him to INHS Asvini. Both the sailors recovered in due course of time and were transferred to INS Angre (the base unit) to allow them to recover fully before being deployed on active duty.
People do not realize how life can be dangerous in forces even at peace time