Doctors were talented, bright students, say AIIMS colleagues

NEW DELHI: It took doctors at the trauma centre of Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) more than an hour to fix both the dislocated hips and repair a deep gash on the face of Catherine Halam — a junior resident doctor at the hospital.

Catherine is one of the four AIIMS resident doctors, from the department of emergency, who were shifted to the trauma centre at around 9.30am on Sunday, after their car met with a severe accident on Yamuna expressway early on Sunday morning.

“We have put her hips back and our plastic surgeons have also repaired the gash on her face that local doctors had haphazardly stitched. She also sustained facial fracture and a wound on her shoulder,” said Rajesh Malhotra, chief of trauma centre, who led the surgical team.

“She is stable but her injuries are severe, so she would need to be in the hospital for some time. The other three have sustained minor injuries— one has a wrist fracture, another sustained fracture to ribs and the third has hip socket dislocation.”

According to hospital sources all the doctors were teetotallers, and academically bright. “All of them have been bright students and scored good ranks. They were preparing for postgraduate entrance examination, while working as resident doctors in the emergency department,” said a hospital source.

The body of Harshad Wankhede was flown to his home town in Maharashtra, and the other two— Yashpreet Singh and Himbala Taneja, to their hometown in Punjab and Haryana respectively.