SURAT: Seeing her father emerging on a wheelchair at the arrival area,
an eight-year-old girl breaks security cordon
,
runs to hug her dad
, tears streaming down her little face – a happy reunion after more than three long months that seemed almost a lifetime. The airport’s sterile precinct was indisputably the most emotionally surcharged area with spontaneous flow of emotions when 37-year-old city-based anaesthesiologist Dr Sanket Mehta and his wife Pinal arrived in the Indigo flight from Chennai.
There was nobody that remained unmoved by the emotionally heart-wrenching scene between Covid hero and his daughter Reeva. Everybody, including the stiffest of uniforms stood to cheer, clap and pour their unconditional love for the braveheart doctor at Surat airport on Saturday morning.
The doctor won millions of hearts with his selfless act of risking it all to intubate a Covid-19 patient.
That was the cornerstone of the epic battle that spanned over 100 days, one of the longest for any coronavirus patient from Gujarat, which the doctor had to fight the dreaded virus both at home and in Chennai’s MGM hospital till he overcame it all and was discharged on Saturday. Dr Mehta was flown to Chennai’s MGM hospital on September 13 after his condition in the city-based BAPS hospitalwhere he was under treatment since July 28, deteriorated. While Reeva performed aarti of her father and prayed for her well-being and speedy recovery, Dr Mehta wheeled out of the terminal building to a shower of flower petals by kin and admirers. “I asked my father about his health. But papa was unable to speak and only placed his hand on my head and smiled,” sobbed Reeva, while talking to TOI.
Dr Mehta was on the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment that uses a pump to circulate blood through an artificial lung back into the bloodstream.
Talking with TOI, Dr Mehta’s wife, Pinal said, “He is unable to speak, but communicates in sign language. He was very happy to see our daughter at the airport after such a long time. He will undergo intense speech therapy and physiotherapy for about a month. We are hoping that he will recover soon and will be able to serve the patients in Surat.”