3-year-old falls in newly dug borewell, rescue op on
A three-year-old boy fell in a newly-dug borewell at Podachenpally in Medak district on Wednesday evening.
The officials are expecting that the borewell could be 25 feet deep and the national disaster response force (NDRF) team is carrying out a rescue operation by digging a parallel hole and supplying oxygen into the borewell.
According to the Medak police, the boy, identified as Sanjay Sai Vardhan, is the youngest of three sons of Govardhan, a barber, and Naveena. The family, from Patancheru, came to Podachenpally in Papannapet mandal of Medak before lockdown and has been staying here since then.
M. Bhikshapathi, who owns agricultural fields, carried out drilling of three borewells.
On Tuesday night, one borewell was drilled, and on Wednesday, two more. Even at 150 feet deep, he could not find water and stopped drilling further. He tried his luck for the third time but it was useless.
The pit was left open and while everybody was returning, at around 5 pm, Sanjay, along with his father and grandfather, was walking towards the house beside the borewell and accidentally slipped and fell into it, said the police.
Soon after receiving the information, the revenue and police officials reached the spot and alerted the NDRF team in Hyderabad which went to Medak and started the rescue operation.
The police dropped a mobile phone into the borewell to record the audio and video of the boy, but it was not helpful. Naveena, the mother of the boy told media, “At around 8 am, we came to the field and drilled a borewell of 160 feet.
As the water did not come, we dug another borewell in the morning at about 150 feet, and dug another third borewell even deeper. We were just returning home to come back tomorrow morning and, suddenly, this happened.”
“As water did not come, we were closing them. We were returning. He just stepped close to the hole and slipped. He was holding his grandfather’s hand. I jumped and tried to catch him, but could not,” the boy’s father, Govardhan, told media.
Speaking to the media, Medak collector, K. Dharma Reddy, said, “The family members tried to pull him up using a sari. The boy held the sari but they could not pull him up. Sand fell into the borewell in the process of pulling him up; the boy left the sari and slipped deeper.”