Shrapnels caused most injuries

Shrapnels caused the maximum injuries in Saturday’s blasts. This was in sharp contrast to the 2005 Sarojini Nagar attacks, where the number of dead went up sharply because of the cylinder explosion after the bomb blast, said doctors.

In almost all the five hospitals where blast victims are being treated, doctors found splinters and other types of injuries but not much of burn injuries. Experts feel when a bomb explodes, there is bound to be burn injuries if a person is standing close to it.

"But most of the patients did not have much burn injuries this time, which hints at the fact that perhaps no one was standing close enough to the bombs," said Dr SK Sharma, chief medical officer of Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital.

Most of the blast victims were rushed to the RML hospital on Saturday.

Majority of the victims suffered head, chest and abdominal injuries due to splinters and shrapnels. Many also received multiple fractures mostly in their left femur bone (left thigh).

Apart from these, there were cases of torn eardrums or damaged eyes.

In Sir Ganga Ram, Promilla Gulati’s one leg had to be amputated because the bone was severely crushed.

Fiza, a young girl from Rajouri Garden, who was brought in a critical state at the Jeevan Mala hospital, lost her left eye in the Beadonpura blast.

"The eye had been knocked out of its socket when she was brought in here and she was excessively bleeding. I'm afraid her eye is gone," said Dr Sudhir Kalhan, a senior surgeon at the hospital.

Doctors say victims also tend to develop hearing impairment because of the very high decibel levels at the time of the blast.

Most of them are going through extensive check-ups to detect any such condition.

In RML, doctors at the ENT department are getting all the admitted patients thoroughly tested for any such problems.

Also, doctors say in head and spine injuries there are always residual effects, though the intensity may vary. "People sometimes develop after-effects even after two or three years; till the definite treatment isn't over, we can't predict the real impact," said a senior doctor at RML.

In orthopedic injuries, people may end up with an imperfect walking pattern.