A young army doctor used his pocketknife and a borrowed hairclip to deliver a baby on a railway platform after a woman passenger suddenly developed labour pain.
Major Rohit Bachwala, an Army Medical Corps officer posted at Jhansi Cantonment, was waiting for his train at Jhansi Junction on Saturday when he noticed a commotion on the platform and heard a woman cry out in pain.
He asked railway staff and learnt that a woman traveller was suffering badly from labour pain. The 31-year-old officer, travelling to Hyderabad on leave to meet his family, decided to miss his train and help.
Eyewitnesses said the doctor got railway staff to find a clean dhoti first.
“Four women railway employees stood in four corners, holding the dhoti to give privacy to her (the would-be mother),” a passenger, Sourish Singh, was quoted as saying to local reporters.
After the woman gave birth, railway staff took mother and child to a hospital and the doctor set off for Hyderabad on a different train.
Contacted by the media later, Major Bachwala said: “While waiting for my train, I noticed that a female railway employee was pushing the woman on a wheelchair... but she started crying all of a sudden near the lift. I ran towards her.”
He added: “There was no time to assemble medical tools as she was in a precarious condition. I used a hairclip to clamp the umbilical cord and a pocketknife to cut it after confirming that the baby was stable. The woman and the baby are fine. Later, an ambulance took them to a nearby hospital.”
Railway officials didn’t reveal the woman’s identity. A staff member, seeking anonymity, told reporters on Sunday that the woman had been travelling with her husband and son on the Panvel-Gorakhpur Express.
“She was traveling from Panvel in Raigarh district of Maharashtra to Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh. (After she developed labour pain), her husband sought help from the railways through the RailMadad portal,” he said.
“They got off at Jhansi Junction on our suggestion…. The woman has requested privacy and we should respect it.”
