After a man in Patna died of a bullet injury, his left eye went missing as his body lay on a bed in the hospital. While the grief-stricken family accused the hospital of taking out the eye, the doctor claimed that it was eaten by rats.
Fantus Kumar was rushed to Patna’s Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH) on Thursday after he sustained a bullet injury in his abdomen. Admitted to the ICU, Kumar died the next night.
While the family stayed with his body at the hospital, they left at 1 am and when they returned a few hours later, his left eye was missing.
Kumar’s family claimed that someone from the hospital had removed the eye. “How can they be so negligent? Either someone from the hospital conspired with the people who shot him or the hospital is involved in some business of taking people’s eyes out,” his brother-in-law told NDTV.
Doctors say rats bit off eye
Police have said that the CCTV footage of the cameras around the hospital is being examined.
NMCH Medical Superintendent Dr Vinod Kumar Singh told NDTV that an investigation is on to determine how the eye went missing but suggested that rats could be behind the eye going missing.
“Fantus Kumar was admitted to the ICU after suffering a firearm injury. He was operated upon and the bullet was removed, but he died at 8:55 pm on Friday. His family was with him till 1 am and they informed us at 5 am that his left eye was missing. We are trying to look into what has happened. An FIR has been filed,” he said.
Family suspects hospital
While calling the shocking incident “not acceptable”, the medical officer said post-mortem analysis would determine what happened to the eye. “The possibility of rats biting off the eye cannot be ignored. We will have to wait for a post-mortem. This is not acceptable, and anyone found guilty of negligence will be punished,” he said.
Responding to the family’s claims that the eye was taken out by the hospital, Singh said that taking the eye out for a possible corneal transplant won’t make much sense. “The eye, even if someone took it out, won’t be of much use. An eye can only be used if it is surgically removed within four to six hours of the death,” he said.