Rider barely survives brush with manja in Dindoshi

While the sight of a colourful kite darting across the sky does well to give the one holding the string a thrill the horrors that powered or glass coated thread popularly known as lsquomanjarsquo can do to the human throat are suddenly all too real for a 35yearold Kandivli resident Friend indeed Sandip Singh literally had a close shave while riding his bike at Dindoshi on Sunday evening when his throat was horribly cut by manja that was spanning the road Had it not been for his friend Datta Pawar Singh could have bled to death within minutes Singh who works as a post office agent had met Pawar at Dindoshi and both of them were on the bike when the incident occurred ldquoWe were returning on the bike at around 430 pm when the manja appeared from out of nowhere and my friendrsquos throat was slashed The manja had left a deep gaping wound and I rushed him to the hospital in an auto rickshawrdquo Pawar said Doctorspeak Doctors attending to Singh at Sanjivani Hospital Malad East said he was in critical condition when he was brought in He had a 12centemetre long gash across his throat which was lifethreatening as his neck muscles and anterior jugular vein were also cut ldquoThe cut had reached his windpipe He was wheeled in for an emergency operation within minutes of admission He lost almost 15 litres of blood and required a transfusion of two units while being operated upon His veins have been sutured and bleeding has stopped He should be on the path to recovery within a weekrdquo said Dr Suman Rawat intensivist at Sanjivani Hospital Malad East A source at the hospital said on condition of anonymity ldquoSinghrsquos anterior jugular vein was slit and the sternocledomastoid muscle was cut through The slit was 2mm away from the trachea and required 30 sutures The patient was taken to the operation theatre within five minutes of arriving and the necessary procedures were donerdquo Blame the kites In another incident an Old Dindoshi resident Sagar Dubey was chasing kites in the middle of the road when he was hit by a biker last afternoon For close to six hours after good Samaritans rushed Sagar to Sanjivani Hospital Malad he lay writhing in pain in the critical care unit ldquoBitten by the kiteflying bug he ran far away from the place where I sell fruits and vegetables The police reunited me with my child after a daylong huntrdquo said Kalpana Dubey a pavement dweller at Dindoshi While Sagar sustained an injury to the back of his head Sumeet Jadhav 15 fractured his right hand after the makeshift tin roof over which he was flying kites along with two friends gave way Jadhav fell from a height of around 10 feet and landed on his hand He is recuperating in the general ward of the hospital Fewer birds fall victim this year BSPCA hospital yesterday attended to over 150 cases of birds injured after coming in contact with manja Lt Col Retd Dr JC Khanna secretary BSPCA Hospital said ldquoOver 60 birds were treated for injuries sustained due to contact with manja One of our ambulances that were sent to South Mumbai found around 130 injured birds We treated them on the spot and around 25 birds were brought back to our hospital for treatment However the number of injured birds has gone down as compared to previous yearsrdquo He added that most injuries seen were to the neck and wings u00a0