No road; woman bitten by snake carried 8km on bamboo stretcher

Bitten by a snake, a 65-year-old woman had to be carried on a bamboo stretcher for eight kilometers from her village in Pune district before a better mode of transport could be found, her family said on Thursday.

Village Chandar, located in hilly area of Velhe tehsil, around 80 km from Pune city, does not have a motorable road linking it with the outside world.

Barkabai Sangle, the woman, was bitten by a snake near her house on Tuesday afternoon, said her son Balu Sangle.

"A stretcher was made from bamboo and bedsheets and she was taken to the primary health centre at Khanapur," he said.

"As there is no proper road, no vehicle can reach our village. So my brother and other locals, without wasting time, carried her on makeshift stretcher to the road near the Panshet dam, walking for two hours," he said.

From Panshet, the woman was taken to the PHC at Khanapur, another 15 km away, in a jeep.

The doctors gave her first aid and sent her to the government-run Sassoon Hospital in Pune, Sangle added. She reached the hospital in an ambulance on Tuesday night.

A resident of Chandar village said the nearest tarred road is eight km away.

There is a dirt road leading to the village, but it was washed away during the rains this year, he said.

"Since there is no means of transportation, in emergency we have to carry the patient on a makeshift stretcher and walk across the hilly terrain," he said.

District Collector Naval Kishore Ram said he would look into the issue of road connectivity.

"I will get details from local officials and will look into the road issue," he said.