Engineers and Jugad go hand-in-hand. No, we are not kidding! Remember the scene from the film ‘3 Idiots’ where Rancho helped Mona give birth using a vacuum cleaner? Did you feel it was a bit far-fetched? Well, when you know how this IIT Kanpur student saved a man’s life then you will be awestruck.
Karttikeya Mangalam, a final year electrical engineering BTech student went to Switzerland as an exchange student. The incident happened while he was returning from Geneva to New Delhi Via Moscow.
He was having an uneventful flight when he heard the aircrew’s announcement for a doctor on-board. It turned out that a 30-year-old Dutchman was on verge of a hyperglycemic episode. Being a patient of Type-1 diabetes his blood sugar levels rose higher than normal and was in need of insulin. Having lost his insulin pump during airport check, the man was literally in a life and death situation.
This is when a Russian doctor came to rescue, He had insulin and a specialized pen to administer the same. However, the Dutchman’s luck soon ran out as the doctor’s pen was designed to administer insulin slowly but he needed it fast.
Soon, the flight headed for an emergency landing. Naturally, that would have required time and the patient was running out of it.
Then this IIT Kanpur engineer student emerged like a hero. He spoke with the doctor about fixing the pen and cartridge dilemma. However, there was still one problem. After fixing the pen, the needle wasn’t moving.
Using his presence of mind, he downloaded the schematics of the pen and realized it’s missing a spring. He asked the aircrew to collect ballpoint pens from the passengers as they contain springs. Soon, he found a perfect one and the insulin device was fixed. Instantly, the doctor administered it and the man’s life was saved.
Grateful, the person thanked Karttikeya Mangalam and invited him to come to Amsterdam. The internet came to know about this incident from a Twitter post by IIT Kanpur. Karttikeya documented the incident in form of an article which they shared. Here’s the tweet:
Karttikeya Mangalam, a final year electrical engineering BTech student, saves life of a 30-year-old Dutch national using his basic engineering acumen. #IITK feels proud to share his story in his own words.https://t.co/SmHjYFUI2n pic.twitter.com/ybnRp19K3f
— IIT Kanpur (@IITKanpur) May 7, 2018
Promptly, the Twitterati sprang into action to congratulate his presence of mind. Here are some of the comments:
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congratulations!
— Congratulatron (@congratsbot) May 12, 2018
Congrats Mr. Karttikeya Mangalam.. Your IQ & presence of mind saved the life. We, Indian doctors, are really proud of our IITians & NITians..As doctors, we can easily understand the thrill of saving human life in such a critical condition. Hats off to Mr.Karttikeya & @IITKanpur
— Shanavas C (@shanubig) May 13, 2018
This is super cool. Makes me very proud! You know we do a lot of things after we graduate from IIT, but making a positive difference to people’s lives is perhaps the point of our education. Sometimes we tend to forget that.
— Gaurav Chakravorty (@gauravchak) May 11, 2018
Wow,its an amazing story we all like this.Karttikeya Mangalam you are really genius,you have humanity ,you are perfect engineer.I saw in story all peoples are sitting but you have only to do this ,such great👍we all are proud of you
— arti kumari (@artikum96128071) May 8, 2018
well done engg brother . u applied ur engg knowledge in limited time with limited resources . this is awesome .
— LAXMAN CHOUDHARY (@lachuchoudhary) May 11, 2018
