Lined up to buy veggies, man collapses, dies at PGI

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 24

A 50-year-old man, a resident of Sector 30-B, a containment zone, died at the PGI today. He was admitted to the hospital yesterday after he reportedly collapsed while standing in a queue to purchase vegetables.

The victim, identified as Jarnail Singh, an electrician, was standing in a queue to purchase vegetables from a CTU bus, which provides essentials in the containment zone, when he collapsed around 9.30 am.

Since the residents could not move out of the containment zone, the man had to be taken to a hospital in an ambulance. It is alleged that the ambulance arrived late. The victim was rushed to the PGI at 11.30 am. The police claimed that the victim had suffered an epilepsy attack.

Jarnail Singh reportedly died during treatment at around 4 am today.

A few hours later, residents gathered in the containment zone to express their resentment against the alleged delay in taking the victim to the hospital. UT officials and cops pacified them.

Meanwhile, the man’s samples were taken for a Covid test, the report of which turned out to be negative.

The police took the Jarnail Singh’s family members in an ambulance to perform his last rites at the cremation ground in Sector 25. Later, the cremation, a team of the Health Department conducted medical screening of the three family members — his wife and two daughters, aged 26 and 18 — before they were dropped at their home.