Nellore: In a major fire at a newly built house cum hospital, a doctor and his two children died of asphyxiation, at Vasundhara Nagar in Renigunta in the early hours of Sunday.
The deceased were Dr Ravi Sankar Reddy, 45, and his children Siddha Reddy, 12, and Kartheeka, 7.
According to Renigunta DSP Ramchandra, the fire broke out from the kitchen around 4am due to an alleged electric short circuit.
The ground floor of the building was being used as a clinic named as Kartheeka Private Clinic. The first and second floors were of duplex type. Dr Reddy was sleeping in one room and his wife Dr Anantha Laskhmi in another room along with children.
Dr Reddy’s mother Rama Subbamma was sleeping in a bedroom on the first floor.
Lakhmi woke up and rushed to the kitchen on the first floor after Subbamma raised an alarm after noticing a fire in the kitchen. Lakshmi alerted the watchman outside. He switched off the power and tried to pour water into the kitchen from the window, but in vain.
Some locals, at the instance of the police, used a JCB to break open the door of the first floor and saved the doctor’s mother Rama Subbamma by using the bucket of the earthmoving machine.
Meanwhile, Dr Laskhmi could not return to the bedroom to save the children because, by then, the fire had spread to the second floor.
Alerted by her, the fire personnel entered the bedroom and brought down the two children, who were certified ‘brought dead’ at the Ruia Hospital in Tirupati.
Dr Ravisankar Reddy, who was in another bedroom on the second floor, died due to asphyxiation while he was trying to get out of the room. His burnt body was later recovered.
Fire personnel believe the two children also died due to asphyxiation after inhaling carbon monoxide. There was no burn injuries on the body.
Fire officials said the situation was complicated due to lack of ventilation. There was large-scale damage to the building and to the gadgets as also to the extensive woodwork and furniture such as sofas and curtains in every room.
According to locals, Dr Reddy was a radiologist at DBR Hospital in Tirupati and he also ran the hospital along with wife Dr Anantha Lakshmi, an MD in General Medicine.
A native of Paluru village of the Pedda Mudium mandal in Jammalamadugu region, Dr Reddy migrated to Renigunta four years ago and built the house recently. His two sisters lived in the US. Police said they would investigate the case from all angles since there was no clarity as to the origin of the fire.
