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Death snatches saviour of lives

One would say it was destiny , that one's death is pre-determined. He was to depart this world on this particular day at this particular time. However, fate as it was that his final breath was taken away by a speeding military truck.

S.A.Upananda Gunasekera (34), an ambulance driver attached to Seru Nuwara hospital in the Trincomalee district had a heart where his heart should be, in a world where most have stones instead. Always dedicated to his enormous task as a life saver, Upananda was more driven by his heart than his mind. Those who worked with him will vouch for this.


S.A.Upananda Gunasekera

During the Mavil Aru operations by the Security Forces to liberate the area from the clutches of the LTTE many wounded soldiers had to be rushed to hospitals. He braved the LTTE guns to drive his ambulance to places where the injured were in the battle zone, disregarding his own safety, in contrary to the others who hesitated and dodged.

" Once he said that he drove his ambulance right into Tiger territory to pick up the injured knowing very well that Tigers could shoot all of them on their return," a Doctor who had the opportunity to know him in the line of duty recollected.

Upananda was recognised for his bravery by the people of Mavil Aru. He received two civilian awards from the Somapura Temples for his noble service. He earned a name for his wordless deeds during the 2004 December tsunami as well, where his ambulance worked overtime transporting injured to hospitals from very remote areas in the Trinco coastal belt.

On this fateful day he took a critical patient from the Seru Nuwara hospital to the Trincomalee hospital. There the emergency staff who knew him very well had a heartening request, to which, being the kind-hearted person he is, Upananda dare not say 'no'.

A critically ill infant was waiting to be transferred to the Lady Ridgeway hospital in Colombo immediately but the hospital ambulance was not available at the time.

In a flash he was off to Colombo. Before his departure he had a plea to a friend, another ambulance driver from Muttur hospital. "Machang look after my hospital, if a need arises."

Upananda safely drove the baby to the LRH in Colombo. But his return journey was meant to be his last. The ambulance on its way back to Trincomalee collided head-on with a military truck carrying a group of female soldiers at Digampatana, Dambulla. Upananda was stuck inside the Ambulance which was badly damaged in the accident. Although he was rescued from the wreckage by the villagers he died shortly afterward.

The irony of the story was that another ambulance which happened to pass the accident scene refused to transport Upananda who was breathing his last by the road or any of the other 11 injured, six women soldiers and a soldier in the truck and a policeman, nurse and two attendants who were in the ambulance, to a hospital since it was not outside his beat.

Upananda leaves a wife and two young children, a son aged five and a daughter aged two and a half years. His funeral will be held today in Trincomalee.

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