Shopian: Two elderly persons could not reach hospital due to snow blocking the roads and died of heart attack in two separate villages in Shopian district.
Ghulam Rasool Khan died on Saturday evening of a heart attack after carrying his ailing son on a stretcher to his home in Shadab-Kareva village. His son, Suhail Ahmad, had been discharged from a Srinagar hospital where he was being treated for cancer, but the road to the village was so blocked with snow that he had to be carried upon a stretcher.
Shareef ud Din Khan, a local from the village, told Kashmir Reader that Khan was among the people who had given shoulder to the stretcher. “Suhail was discharged from hospital but from Shopian to our village the road was dumped in snow, which forced us to carry him on a stretcher,” he said.
He said that before reaching home, Rasool fell on the ground and was taken to a local medical shop where the pharmacist said that he had died.
Similarly at Durpora village, Abdul Aziz Bhat, a retired health department employee, also suffered a heart attack at his village and could not be taken to a health centre in time. Locals from the village told Kashmir Reader that the road from the village to the Zainpora PHC (primary health centre) was not motorable due to snow, so they were not able to take him there.
Villagers said that Bhat was a chain smoker besides being a diabetic patient. He was 60.

Raashid Hassan