‘Lucky I survived’: He jumped to escape Lucknow fire, fall left him paralysed

As horrifying visuals of the fire in Lucknow’s Aliganj flashed on TV screens and social media on Monday, a man was seen jumping from the second-floor of the building to escape the flames. Jayant Gupta, 28, survived the blaze, but has suffered serious back injuries that have left him paralysed waist down.

The spine may have taken a hit, but the spirit has not. Currently under treatment at the ICU of Lucknow’s King George’s Medical University, Jayant said with a smile, “I feel that I am lucky to have survived that horror.” He added that he would have to recover to look after his family. A doctor treating said it is difficult to predict if he would recover from his current condition and that they are monitoring him closely.

The building where the fire broke out housed an art production company and other business units. All 15 victims died of suffocation. The investigation into the cause of the fire revealed that the lack of an emergency exit and other safety measures had turned the building into a death trap.

Jayant had been working at the art production company, named Head Hoppers, as a junior character artist for the past four years. His family members said he had received many offers from outside Lucknow, including one from Dubai, but stayed back for his parents and aunt.

15 people died in the Lucknow fire tragedy

Jayant recounts horror

Speaking to The Indian Express, Jayant recounted the horrors of that day and what pushed him to jump from the second-floor. He said that soon after lunch, there was a commotion about a fire in the building, but no one took it seriously. “We initially took it casually, trying to save our stuff. But in a matter of no time, the lights started flickering, and we realised we needed to escape,” Jayant said.

He recalled that there were about 15 people in the production room. “We tried to rush out, but the biometric gate was locked. Smoke was filling the room. We started throwing whatever we could towards the glass gate – bottles, chairs – and it broke.”

The young man said that as the fire and the smoke spread, he and his colleagues struggled to breathe. “When we tried to escape, we realised that the only staircase down was not just filled with smoke, but the flames made it impossible to cross. So we rushed upstairs to go to the roof, but the door was locked,” he said.

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Jayant said that by this time, many of his colleagues had started collapsing. “When we found the door to the roof locked, the only option was to go back to the room and find some way out.”

“Some of our colleagues, who were in the canteen area, had escaped by climbing down the wire, but it was no longer possible by the time we tried exiting through the main gate or the roof,” he said. “There was smoke, heat and darkness everywhere. I could feel the flames; we were struggling to breathe.” Jayant said they saw a small vent in the production room that was used for light during power cuts, and he decided to take a chance by jumping through it. “There was no other way.”

The fall left him with serious injuries. Jayant is now paralysed from the waist down, and his hands and legs have burn injuries. But he is confident of a recovery, and says he is a single child and must take care of his parents and a dependent aunt. “Whenever we came across news reports of a fire caused by an air-conditioner, we would joke about how we would react in such a situation, especially with all the inflammable stuff (in the studio). We would tease each other. Little did we know it would come true,” Jayant said, smiling despite the pain.

His cousin Mayank, a designer and the first person Jayant called after his miraculous escape, said, “I had told him about an opportunity in Dubai, but probably the thought of his parents kept him here. You can gauge his courage by the fact that even after suffering such injuries, he managed to tell someone my number and spoke to me before becoming unconscious,” Mayank said. He said Jayant’s father had retired from the Uttar Pradesh Public Works Department, and the family lives in Lucknow’s Aishbagh.

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Jayant is recovering at KGMU, Lucknow

What doctor said

Dr Zia Arshad, who is attending to Jayant at the trauma centre of King George’s Medical University, told The Indian Express, “Because of the injuries and a fracture in his lower spine, his lower body is paralysed. He has 10 per cent burn injuries, which will heal. He is unable to hold his bladder and stool. We are not making any surgical interventions at present.”

Asked about his recovery from the paralysis, the doctor said it is hard to predict and that they are monitoring Jayant’s condition closely.

KK Singh, spokesperson of the medical university, said specialists from several departments are monitoring Jayant as he is the only survivor of the June 22 fire tragedy under treatment at the hospital.