A screen grab of the CCTV footage.

AGRA: A freak medical accident, a 40 year old woman died, after an explosion in her mouth while she was undergoing a gastric lavage procedure for removal of some poison that she had earlier consumed, at Jawahar Lal Nehru Medical College (JNMC), Aligarh , on Wednesday.

Confirming this, Chief medical officer, SS Zaidi JNMC told TOI that the woman, Sheela Devi , was admitted to the hospital’s emergency by the police. He said, “some explosion occurred in her mouth and flames along with smoke came out while the team of medicos were trying to suck out poison from her stomach”.

He said her body has been sent for the post mortem and doctors are also trying to understand why it happened? He said, “there could be possibility that she allegedly consumed Celphos tablet (Aluminium phosphate) which releases phosphine gas in addition to Aluminium oxide and other gases (which are highly inflammable) and the explosion occurred when it came in contact with gastric acid”.

“We have cctv footage of the incident and we have seen it several times after this incident as such thing has never happened in medical history,” claimed Dr Zaidi, adding that a research is required to reveal the exact cause of this explosion.

Incharge of Jawan police station, Naresh Kumar Singh, said that Sheela Devi, who hailed from Jalali, was found in an unconscious state outside village Alampur Subkara. She was immediately taken to Medical college where during treatment the mishap occurred.

He told TOI that the deceased’s post-mortem report revealed that she had consumed poison. Her viscera has been preserved for forensic test, said a doctor who performed autopsy on her. No FIR has been registered till the filing of this report.



In Video: Aligarh: Woman consumes poison, dies of explosion in mouth during treatment