Amid Harish Rana euthanasia case, how a pothole 200 km away gave a brain-dead woman in Bareilly a new lease of life

A 50-year-old brain-dead woman from Uttar Pradesh got a new lease of life after a pothole on Bareilly-Haridwar NH-74 unexpectedly turned out to be a blessing for her. The pothole miraculously revived her despite her clinically having "no sign of life", reports TOI's Keshav Agarwal. Vineeta Shukla jolted back to life after the ambulance she was travelling in hit a pothole and she began breathing normally following the violent jerk.

Declared “brain-dead” by doctors and discharged from a hospital in Bareilly with almost “no hope of survival”, Vineeta Shukla was being taken back home by her distraught husband, Kuldeep Kumar Shukla, on February 24 when their ambulance hit a pothole-riddled stretch of the highway. Then, a sudden and violent jolt did the unthinkable.

"I told my family to prepare for her last rites. She was not breathing; there was only a sinking heartbeat. As the ambulance reached Hafizganj, it struck a large pothole and the vehicle moved violently," her husband told TOI on Tuesday. And what happened next was nothing short of a miracle. "My wife started breathing normally again... I immediately informed my family to suspend all the funeral preparations," he said. A senior assistant in the copy section at judicial courts in Pilibhit, Vineeta Shukla fainted on the evening of February 22 while managing household work, her family said.


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Brain dead woman gets new life

Kuldeep Kumar Shukla then rushed his wife, Vineeta Shukla, to Neurocity Hospital Pilibhit in Pilibhit. There, after receiving critical medical care, she returned home on Monday, what Kuldeep described as “conquering death.”



“She is now not just awake, but talking to us,” he said.

Dr Rakesh Singh, a neurosurgeon at Neurocity Hospital, first carried out a detailed review of the patient’s medical records and diagnosis with doctors from the hospital in Bareilly before beginning her intensive treatment.

“The examination of her eyes showed mydriasis (dilation of pupils), indicating the death of her brain and constantly sinking signs of life in her. During a series of quick medical tests, heavy neurotoxins were detected in her bloodstream and lymphatic system. The diagnosis and consequent treatment helped remarkably in her recovery,” the neurosurgeon said.

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Harish Rana euthanasia case

The case of Vineeta Shukla comes amid the Supreme Court's landmark judgment that has allowed the removal of life support of a 31-year-old man, Harish Rana, who has been in a vegetative state for more than a decade. This is the first instance of court-approved passive euthanasia - the act of withdrawing or withholding life-sustaining treatment.

Harish Rana suffered serious head injuries after falling from a fourth-floor balcony in 2013. He has remained in a comatose state since then. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court noted that Rana has not been responding to treatment. Rana was an engineering student at Punjab University in Chandigarh when he fell from the fourth-floor balcony of his paying guest accommodation.

Since then, he has been breathing with the help of a tracheostomy tube and is fed through a gastrostomy tube. He cannot speak, see, hear or recognise anyone, his parents have said.