Nashik: For nearly two days after she went missing, 75-year-old Chandrabhaga Bharkate remained untraceable. On Monday morning, she was found alive inside a well near the Chandwad bus stand, clutching a water pump rope and bracing herself against the well wall in a remarkable fight for survival.
Police said the septuagenarian was gripping the rope inside the dark well, relying on a narrow cavity in the wall for support as she waited to be noticed. She may have been wandering around for two days prior to the incident,” inspector Kailas Wagh said. The elderly woman was rescued by Chandwad police after commuters heard a loud splash from the well around 10am and discovered her desperately holding onto the rope, her feet wedged into a cavity in the stone wall to keep herself from slipping into deeper water. A rescue team, comprising assistant inspector Ravindra Chaudhary and constables Sachin Raut and Swapnil Jadhav, rushed to the spot and worked for more than an hour to bring her out. The operation was hampered by dense peepal growth that had spread across the well. However, police officers doubt she had spent the entire two days inside the well. “Chandrabhaga Bharkate had not been clinging onto the well for the past two days but she had been missing for two days. Even so, the sight of the elderly woman hanging onto a rope inside the overgrown well and surviving long enough to be rescued has left residents astonished. Police are investigating how she ended up in the well.
The dramatic rescue ended an anxious search for the woman after her son lodged a missing person’s complaint with Chandwad police two days earlier.
Missing Individual Found and Hospitalized
Bharkate, who had been unaccounted for since Saturday, was located and promptly taken to a government hospital for initial treatment. Following this, he was transferred to a private medical facility for further care.