Braving treacherous weather and waist-deep snow, a doctor posted in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district on Tuesday proved that a sense of duty can triumph over even nature's harshest challenges as he reached his hospital atop an excavator to attend to patients.
Dr. Basharat Pandit, a resident of south Kashmir's Pulwama and currently staying in Srinagar, is a gynaecologist posted at the district hospital in Shopian.
He set out from home at 7.30 on Tuesday to cover the nearly 55-km journey. While snowfall was light in and around Srinagar, conditions worsened in south Kashmir, where Shopian received three to four feet of fresh snow.
After reaching Shopian, his car got stuck, forcing him to walk nearly three km in a desperate bid to reach the hospital.
"It was early morning, and most roads were not cleared. I started walking, but then a JCB (excavator) came along, so I hopped onto that," Pandit told PTI over the phone.
He said he took the excavator to the hospital and arrived there around 10.30 am.
"It was a sense of responsibility and duty... It was the sense of duty towards my patients, especially the pregnant women, who could otherwise have faced problems," he said.
Pandit said he had to reach the hospital at any cost to perform procedures on pregnant women.
"Many patients were lined up for procedures, and there were some emergencies as well. Referring the patients to other hospitals in this heavy snow would have created difficulties," he said.
The doctor said his department performed 10 surgeries during the day, and all the patients were stable.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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