Little girl badly injured after falling 20 feet into stream from anganwadi second floor in Kerala

PTI, Jun 25, 2024, 3:07 PM IST

Idukki (Kerala): A four-year-old girl suffered serious head injuries after accidentally slipping and falling down a stream from the second floor of a village anganwadi in this mountainous district of Kerala.
The anganwadi is located at Kallar in Adimali.

The child who was injured on Monday afternoon was initially rushed to a nearby hospital and later shifted to Kottayam Government Medical College.

As the incident garnered widespread attention, Minister for Health and Woman and Child Development Veena George intervened and directed the medical college superintendent to ensure expert treatment and care for the girl.

Local residents said the teacher was taking the children to the second floor after giving them food downstairs, when the little girl slipped on the tiled floor and fell 20 feet from the second floor and plunged into a stream flowing behind the building.

According to the child’s parents, there was no proper and safe sidewall on the second floor, and they had complained about it several times.

“The floor was tiled…she fell down into the stream flowing behind the building… It was 20-30 ft down,” the injured girl’s father told TV channels.

A villager said they have been complaining for the past two years about the functioning of the anganwadi on the second floor, but panchayat authorities didn’t pay much attention to it.

Minister George said a direction has already been given to ensure the safety of anganwadi buildings. She also instructed the director of the women and child development department, under her ministry, to carry out a probe into the incident.