Taking the plunge to save lives
Hashindu: No thought of his own safety. Pix by Sameera Weerasekara and Ishanka Sunimal
It was a Thursday afternoon on February 1 last year when 19- year-old Hashindu Madushan suddenly heard a commotion in his neighbourhood of Karandeniya, Galle. The shocking news was that a baby had fallen into a well nearby.
Rushing to the well, Hashindu could see the infant in the water. The villagers were gathered around. Without a second thought, Hashindu decided to go down the well, which was 23 feet deep. Bracing his back against one side of the wall and legs on the other, he slowly made his descent, reached the water level and picked up the baby who was already unconscious. “
His courageous act won him the prestigious Budal Na Gold Medal of Civilian Bravery 2019, the highest bravery medal given by the Foundation for Civilian Bravery.
Sharing his experience with the Sunday Times, Hashindu says after he lifted the baby, the villagers sent down a rucksack attached to a rope, and he put the baby into it. The villagers had rushed the baby to hospital and in their haste forgot about Hashindu who was stuck inside the well, with no means to climb up. “I called for help and some neighbours came and threw a rope for me to climb up,” Hashindu says adding “when I saw the baby inside it didn’t occur to me that my own life could be at risk by climbing down the deep well.”
Ravindu and Pabasara: Quick action
Later it was revealed that the baby’s mother was arrested by the Karandeniya police as she had allegedly thrown the baby into the well. Hashindu relates with a heavy heart that the baby he rescued with much effort passed away on February 16 at the Karapitiya Teaching Hospital, Galle. “If I had got to the baby a few minutes earlier his life could have been saved,” he says.
A past student of Madakumbura Maha Vidyalaya, Karandeniya, Hashindu was an athlete and cadet at school. He is grateful to his principal, Dharmadasa Rajapakse for nominating him for the award. Currently employed as an excavator driver – he drives the big yellow machines used in construction to dig out dirt, he is struggling to support his family. His father does masonry work while his mother works in Kuwait, as a domestic.
Saving a Chinese national stuck
in a pit for seven days
The Police and the Army sent out search patrols on May 12 last year in search of a missing Chinese national who had been working on the Matara to Hambantota stretch of the Southern Expressway. Fliers with his picture were distributed among the villagers of Aparekka, Matara.
On the 19th, a Saturday evening, 14-year-old Ravindu Lakmal and Pabasara Jayaratne walking in the Dandeniya Forest Reserve in Aparekka, Matara to collect a beehive heard sounds of moaning deep inside the forest and went in search. They found the man dressed in shorts lying in a seven foot pit.
“He was mumbling things that we couldn’t understand. He looked as if he had lost his mind,” says Ravindu. “Our immediate thought was to take him out of the pit and save his life,” adds Pabasara.
Going to a house about half a kilometre away, they returned with a rope which they tied to a nearby tree. Navindu climbed down and tried to bring him up but he was too heavy to carry. Back they went to the same house, this time to call the Police. The Thihagoda police rescued the man who was taken to Matara Hospital. The boys later learned that when they found the man, he had already been in that pit for seven days.
Ravindu and Pabasara, Grade 9 students at Yatiyana Maha Vidyalaya, Matara were awarded Silver Medals of Civilian Bravery.
“We live in a society where people video accidents instead of helping. But these children set an example to society by saving a person’s life,” says M.S.Indika, Principal of Yatiyana Maha Vidyalaya. K.G.Victor, teacher-in-charge of counselling nominated Ravindu and Pabasara for the award.
At the 25th award ceremony of Foundation for Civilian Bravery held in late July at the BMICH, 13 awardees were recognized
The Community Harmony awards of Civilian Bravery were given to Sujeevani Chandima of Mallakele, Thunmodara, Naththandiya for taking in 14 Muslim children and adults into her home when mob violence broke out in Thummodara following the Easter Sunday bombings.
Entries can now be sent in for the 2020 awards.
| The beginnings : A Reader’s Digest story | |
 Kasun Chandraratne Attorney- at- Law Kasun Philip Chandraratne, happened to read an article in the Reader’s Digest March 1990 edition about a nine-year-old girl who saved the life of her father. Later she was recognized by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission USA. Her photograph with US President Ronald Reagan carried the title “to an American Hero.” It was then he learned about the organizations of Hero Fund USA and The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission established to appreciate the acts of bravery done by common people and the thought struck him that the people of Sri Lanka also deserved such recognition for civilian bravery. The Foundation for Civilian Bravery was thus set up on January 13, 1993 by Mr. Chandraratne, who is its President. Since then it has been dedicated to recognizing and rewarding civilians who save the lives of others, at the risk of their own. Appreciation of these heroic deeds and acts of civilian bravery should be a paramount duty of any civilized society, Mr.Chandraratne believes.
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