TimesView In the present case, the housing society’s lift should not have been operational till its door was fixed. The housing society is equally responsible for it. The housing society management and the lift maintenance contractors cannot shirk their responsibility. At the same time, the Bombay Lifts Act makes it mandatory for the PWD to inspect lifts twice every year but this does not happen. MUMBAI: A four-year-old boy, whose leg was crushed after it got trapped in a damaged, collapsible grille door of an Ulhasnagar housing society’s elevator last month, underwent four surgeries, including a skin grafting procedure, to save his foot. It it will take three months for him to walk again. What added to Devansh Jeswani’s family’s worries is that he suffers from a G6PD (glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase) deficiency, due to which he cannot be administered certain medicines, and has to be monitored.“I cannot put behind the horrific memory of the mishap. While my son was screaming in pain, I had to yank his foot out from the grille,” said Devansh’s mother, Disha, who was with him at the time. Most elevator companies have phased out collapsible grille doors due to safety concerns.Disha was taking Devansh and his twin, Dipika, for classes at Ratan Garden society in Ulhasnagar on February 16. The children and their mother entered the elevator to head to the third floor around 11.30am. Devansh was not keen on going and was throwing a tantrum. “The lower portion of the grille door was broken. When the lift cabin was moving between the first and second floors, Devansh’s leg got caught in the lower portion. The lift continued to move upwards, dragging his leg,” Disha added.Devansh was rushed to a local hospital, but on examining the injury, doctors referred him to Bhatia Hospital at Grant Road.“Devansh was brought in an emergency. He had lost a lot of blood and had severely injured his right lower leg and foot with an exposed ankle joint. There was an associated fracture of the leg bone with cut tendons. There was also a severe crush injury to the skin and soft tissues of his right ankle and foot. On the same day, we carried out an emergency procedure to remove dead tissues. We repaired the cut tendons, reduced the fracture and reconstructed the ankle joint, covering it with a local muscle flap. VAC (vacuum assisted closure) dressing was applied on the wound. The system includes a foam dressing that is connected to a pump which provides suction to drain fluids from the wound, reduces bacterial load and helps control infection,” said Dr Shailesh Ranade, a plastic surgeon with the hospital.Doctors performed a skin graft on Devansh’s ankle wound on March 7. After observing the graft for four days, the child was discharged on Monday. His leg will remain in plaster for six weeks. The Jeswanis may approach the consumer forum against the lift’s maintenance agency.The Bombay Lifts Act is more than 71 years old. RTI activist Mohammad Afzal, who had filed a PIL on elevator safety a decade ago, said, “Public Works Department (PWD) had given a written assurance to the high court that the Act would be amended. A draft was prepared but I was later informed that the files had got destroyed in a Mantralaya fire in 2012. The amendment is the need of the hour.” The Act makes it mandatory for PWD, with around 350 inspectors, to inspect lifts twice every year, but inspections have reduced to once a year in Mumbai, Afzal said.

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