The toll in the tragic triple train accident in Odisha's Balasore rose to 289 on Tuesday, June 13, with the death of a man from Bihar while undergoing treatment, an official said. Bijay Paswan, from Bihar's Motihari district, succumbed to his injuries at the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Bhubaneswar.
Paswan, along with six others, had boarded the Coromandel Express on June 2 from Howrah to visit Kerala's Palakkad. While one of them had died at the accident spot, Paswan passed away on Tuesday. He was initially admitted to the Balasore District Headquarters Hospital and then shifted to the central ICU of SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack with cervical spine injury and quadriplegia. "The health condition of Paswan was stable when he was admitted at the hospital. However, his condition gradually deteriorated and yesterday, when his oxygen level started falling, we put him on a ventilator. Medicines were given to raise his blood pressure too. Despite all efforts, he could not survive and passed away due to a cardiac arrest," Professor Sudhanshu Sekhar Mishra, Superintendent of SCB Medical College, said.
He also informed that the condition of the other three people under treatment at the hospital is critical. The kidneys of two other persons are not functioning properly, while the brain of another was operated upon, and his lungs have not been functioning properly, said Mishra.