I thought we would die: Aakriti Gogireddy

Hyderabad: Like a lot of other volunteers from the city, I too wanted to do my bit for Nepal but did not know how to go about it.

Later on curofy (a networking app that enables communication between doctors) we met other doctors who wanted to help. The team of eight doctors, which included gynaecologists, MDs, neuro-spine trauma surgeons and physiotherapists, left for Nepal on May 7. The team included three doctors from Hyderabad — Dr Yashwanth Sonnathi, Dr Vishistha and me. After reaching Kathmandu, we arranged a medical camp for a day. But we wanted to reach those areas where not much relief operation was being held. After a day at Kathmandu, we covered Lamosangu and Baseri, which was on the top of a mountain. We eventually had to reach the Nepal-China border.

While we were on our way, we noticed that the ambulance was shaking a bit, seconds later I saw a part of a mountain collapse in front of us, and then another house collapsed... We knew that an earthquake had stuck again. I thought we would die.  In the next 6.5 km, we saw around seven landslides, missing each by a few seconds. We got out of the ambulance and waited for a while. We then ran for our lives.  That night, too, we felt the tremors but still went ahead with another medical camp next day.

People there don’t have access to proper medical care. Because of the earthquake, a lot of people had bone dislocations, some had cuts, fractures, sprains, and a few complained of fever. Ours was a basic first-aid camp but we helped people as much as we could. We also helped injured persons from the Nepal Army and left medicines with them before we left.

More than money, people in Nepal need access to food. People there were cooking food with whatever little they had and made sure that they shared it with others. That’s a lesson I came back with.