Mumbai, May 4: Doctors do their bit to preserve lives but a Mumbai-based cardiologist risked his own to save three others.

On Wednesday last week, Santosh Giri, a gardener at the Bombay Port Trust hospital, set himself afire on the building’s premises allegedly after being harassed by his superiors.

The fire spread from Giri to others who came in his way.

Dr Debabrata Dash, who was checking patients in his chamber, heard the commotion and thought that a fire had broken out in the hospital.

When he found out what was happening, he got two patients, one of them a senior citizen, out of the way to safety.

A woman patient, however, could not escape in time and her sari caught fire, hospital staff said.

“In an attempt to save the woman, he (Dash) fell in the fire that had spread out. He burnt his hands and back, and has suffered 35 per cent burn injuries,” Dash’s wife, Priyadarshini, told The Telegraph.

Onlookers quickly came to Dash’s rescue and covered him in a blanket. He is currently recuperating at the SL Raheja Hospital in Mahim and is out of danger, she said.

“When I got to know about the incident, we were worried for him. He has been in a lot of pain and was critical for three days. But, now that I am told about the lives he saved, I feel proud,” Priyadarshini said.

The woman he saved is also admitted in the same hospital with 45 per cent burns.

Dash, who is from Bhubaneswar, is a senior interventional cardiologist at Raheja and BPT hospitals. He has been invited as faculty to over five countries. He lives in Mumbai with his wife and four-year-old daughter.

But Giri succumbed to burn injuries on Saturday. Police are investigating two of his seniors for abetment of suicide.