Shreya Sengupta, a 22-year-old postgraduate student of Presidency University, had stopped by the makeshift canteen with her classmate Chandroma Majumder when chunks of concrete came off the ceiling at Baker Building on Thursday afternoon and fell on their heads. Shreya recounts her ordeal.

Around five of us were returning from the main canteen around 1.30pm following a break from practical classes when we saw some of our classmates at Sukumarda’s canteen. We stopped — three of us sat down on the benches at the canteen while Chandroma and I stood by the table.

It was a friend’s birthday and I said I would have a biscuit as a treat since there was nothing much on offer.

I had bent to pick a biscuit from the table when a chunk of concrete fell on the back of my head and right shoulder. I held my head and leaned on a wall, terrified and shocked. The piece perhaps split into two after hitting me.

Another fragment from the ceiling had fallen on Chandroma’s head and she was bleeding profusely. When I saw blood dripping down her head, I got more scared and started crying. Soon, some of my friends fetched ice and cold water and poured it on my head.

My classmates at Sukumarda’s canteen consoled me but my head swooned and I felt drowsy. One of them told me to relax and offered to take me to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital.

Many students had gathered around us, asking me a lot of things. But I could not respond. I was petrified and don’t remember the person who offered to take me to hospital.

About half an hour later, the drowsiness reduced though my head was still reeling. I was trying to recollect what had happened. A chunk of concrete fell on my head?

From Calcutta Medical College and Hospital we were taken to Ruby hospital (off the Bypass) and the doctors let me go home after CT scan and a couple of hours of observation. I have been advised seven days of complete rest — and no mental stress — so that the doctors can rule out internal injury.

My mother is so scared that she doesn’t want me to go to the university again. But that is not possible. I spoke to Chandroma this morning and we decided to take a different route to our department even if we get late. We will bypass Baker Building and go via Derozio Building. In the year and a half at Presidency, we have seen the dilapidated condition of Baker Building. Who would have thought that a ceiling chunk would fall on my head?