10 Delhi Police personnel face severe burns in rescue operation

The corridors outside the trauma centre at AIIMS on Wednesday afternoon told a story that the death toll alone could not. Of the 13 patients brought to the hospital from the fire at Lemon Green Restaurant and its attached hotel in Malviya Nagar, 10 were Delhi Police personnel, five head constables and five constables, who had been the first to enter the burning building and paid for that courage with burns and injuries severe enough to require admission.

Three other patients had fallen from a height, having jumped to save their lives from a building that gave them no other option.

AIIMS confirmed that three bodies were shifted to the Burns and Plastic Surgery Department. Of the 47 people rescued from the building, 26 are currently undergoing treatment. The search and rescue operation was completed at 12:12 pm.

The fire broke out at the multi-storey Lemon Green building in the Hauz Rani locality of Malviya Nagar on Wednesday morning.

The Delhi Fire Service received the first call at 8:48 am. Eight fire tenders were eventually deployed. More than 40 people were inside the building when the blaze began. By the time the operation was declared complete, 21 people were dead. Of them, 17 were foreign nationals, most from Liberia, Nigeria, Mozambique, and Bangladesh.

The AIIMS trauma centre, which sits less than four kilometres from Malviya Nagar, became the primary receiving point for the most critically injured.

The scene outside was controlled but heavy with the particular gravity of a mass casualty event: families waiting for word, police officers in plainclothes moving between floors, hospital staff navigating between routine patients and those just brought in from a fire.

The detail about police personnel forming the majority of AIIMS admissions is not incidental.

The ten officers, all constables and head constables, were the first to enter the building.