Bhubaneswar: One man died due to suffocation while attempting to pull the ‘Taladhwaja Chariot’ during the Holy Trinity’s Rath Yatra in Puri, Odisha, on Sunday.
According to reports, the man got stuck in a large crowd of enthusiastic devotees while trying to pull the chariot of Lord Balabhadra.
The district administration identified the deceased as Lalit Bagarti from Saintala in Balangir district.
He lost consciousness due to suffocation in the crowd, following which he was immediately transferred to the District Headquarters Hospital (DHH), Puri district, where doctors pronounced him dead.
“The chariot of Lord Balabhadra had moved ahead a little when suddenly the crowd increased outside the security cordon. Meanwhile, we saw the elderly deceased fall on the ground in the crowd. We immediately rescued him and brought him to the hospital in the ambulance. We also administered CPR to him in the ambulance on the way to hospital. I gave CPR all along and the doctor also tried hard to save him at the hospital but later pronounced him dead. From a call received on the deceased’s mobile which is with us, we came to know his name and he belonged to Balangir district,” said a volunteer working in St John Ambulance.
(with IANS input)
