A doctor with the city's AMRI Hospital where a fire claimed 93 lives, on Monday recounted the horror and said he along with three nurses saved eight patients from the suffocating fumes of the Friday morning blaze.
"I was attending a patient at the intensive cardiac care unit (ICCU) when suddenly I saw black fumes engulfing the whole area while the lights went out a few minutes later," said Sachidanand Barman.
Despite the darkness and the fumes, Barman claimed he along with one male and two female nurses took out eight patients out to safety.
"Using mobile flash lights and bed sheets we carried the patients one by one outside to safety. We would come out in the verandah to take fresh air and again get back in. It was difficult for me to continue but the nurses egged me on to rescue the patients," said Barman.
Barman said that the nursing assistants had made a sort of rope using bed sheets, by which the patients were lowered down the window from where the rescuers took them away to safety.
The doctor, who says he was inside the ICCU for over two hours, regretted that he could not save the ninth patient.
He claimed the fire engines came much later. "I don't remember the time when the fire broke out but the fire engines came much later."
In the worst fire tragedy in any hospital in India, 93 patients and staffers were killed when a blaze started in the basement of the AMRI annexe building early on Friday and quickly spread, trapping hundreds of people.