1234 Kolkata: Call of duty on Thursday afternoon saved the life of Akash Karan, a third-year senior resident plastic surgeon at Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad. The young doctor from Bengal was at the OT at the time of the disaster. The next day, when he was finally allowed to go to his hospital accommodation —a 2BHK apartment in the Atulyam-4 hostel—he was aghast to see that the structure, which had been his home until 24 hours ago, had been reduced to rubble as the plane came crashed on it. Karan can't stop thanking his lucky stars that he was away on duty when the disaster took place. Karan has now been camping in a ward at the hospital. "I have been living in the hospital ward since Thursday," Karan told TOI over phone. "The hostel flat I called home is gone. The officials have promised temporary accommodation in a nearby guest house." Originally from East Midnapore, Karan grew up at Manendragarh in Chhattisgarh and did his MBBS at CNMCH. For the past two-and-a-half years, he had been living at the on-campus Atulyam-4 flat, equipped with all modern amenities. Karan was in the operation theatre, when the crash took place. "Our HoDs asked us to report to the Trauma Centre. I finished the OT and hurried off. That's when I heard that four buildings of Atulyam had been severely damaged. I had a feeling I had lost my home. But when the injured started pouring in, I had no time to think about it — I had to focus on saving lives," he recounted. It wasn't until all the patients had been attended to that Karan tried to check on his flat but was not allowed to. It was only on Friday evening, almost 24 hours after the tragedy, that he could finally visit. "Just the skeleton of the building stood there — battered, bruised and broken. I could only salvage some documents. I was heart-broken but it could have been worse had I been at my flat when the plane crashed. I am still counting my luck," said Karan.
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