Ten days after the curator and a security supervisor at Vadodara Zoo Sayaji Baug were injured in a hippo attack during a visit to the compound, security supervisor Rohit remains in critical condition on the ventilator after an amputation while as healer Dr. Pratyush Patankar is recovering from multiple fractures.
Officials from the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) confirmed on Monday that Rohit is on respiratory support after the amputation of his right leg last week. He suffered serious injuries, including bites, from the hippo’s canine teeth that caused a major artery in his leg to rupture. Since his surgery, Rohit has also suffered from a multi-organ infection.
Mangesh Jaiswal, Director of Parks and Gardens, told this newspaper: “Security supervisor Rohit is on fan support. His case is complicated after the amputation…his kidneys have already begun to show signs of the side effects of the strong antibiotics and medications he has been prescribed. The bacterial infection from the wild animal bite is also serious… There is a multi-organ infection and the situation is grim… But we hope for the best.”
Patankar was discharged on March 18 from the Narhari hospital, where both injured were rushed on March 9 after the accident at the compound. Jaiswal said Patankar, who suffered multiple fractures from the severe bite injuries, had the deepest injury to his scapula bone. Jaiswal confirmed that the two were attacked by Dimpy, the female hippo, who shares the enclosure with her descendant Mangal, born in 2019.
The incident occurred on March 9 while Dr. Patankar was visiting the enclosure to check on the hippo, as the curator had been informed by keepers that one of the two hippos had suffered a back injury. Being Thursday, the official day off for visitors, it is common for Patankar to make the rounds of the zoo. However, animal experts have since questioned the curator’s decision to enter the enclosure to check on the animal.
It was while crossing the last security barrier that Patankar fell with the animal charging at him. Patankar told VMC officials that he pretended to be dead to minimize the hippo’s attack, but Rohit, who jumped in to save Patankar, was brutally attacked by the animal.
Vadodara Zoo is home to two hippos: Dimpy and Mangal. After Mangal’s birth in January 2019, Dimpy allegedly attacked her partner Chunnu, resulting in her death. Dimpy and Chunnu were brought from the Kamala Nehru Zoo in Indore.
