Thrissur: A psychiatrist who choked on her food at a shopping mall in the town died without medical attention as mall managers and shoppers refused to drive her to a hospital. Precious 25 minutes were lost before she was taken to the hospital less than two kilometres away in an auto rickshaw.
Dr Lakshmi M. Mohan, attached to the Government Mental Health Centre at West Fort, had run up to the wash basin as soon as she felt the food in her windpipe and collapsed there. She could be brought down to the ground floor from the third only after 11 minutes as the elevators were crowded.
The mall did not have an ambulance on stand-by. The managers could not arrange for a vehicle. The other shoppers turned a blind eye to the dying woman. Her companions could hire an auto rickshaw about 750 metres away from the mall. She was declared “brought dead” at the hospital.
The psychiatrist’s death throws light to the lack of awareness about first-aid methods and the general apathy towards persons in distress. The mall was ill-prepared to deal with any emergency such as this.
Dr Lakshmi Mohan had been married to Siddharth P. Nair, a chartered accountant with the Dhanalakshmi Bank, for two years. She is the daughter of Madan Mohan and Geetha from North Paravur. Her body will be cremated at Paravur at 10 am on Tuesday.
