Joy turns to grief: Little Sajid dies after being pulled out

The tears of relief that swept across Koelhat village in Tanore of Rajshahi on Thursday night turned into cries of heartbreak barely an hour later, when two-year-old Sajid, rescued alive after being trapped for nearly 36 hours inside a deep tube-well borehole, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

What had felt like a miracle – a moment of collective joy – collapsed into unbearable silence.

At 8:50pm, firefighters finally lifted the dust-covered child from the narrow shaft of the abandoned deep tube well, ending a desperate two-day rescue operation that had kept the entire village suspended between hope and despair.

Tanore Upazila Nirbahi Officer Naima Khan, had declared: “Yes, the boy has been rescued.”

Within minutes, the boy was rushed into an ambulance and taken to the nearest medical facility. Plans were underway to shift him to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital.

For a brief moment, it felt as though prayers had been answered.

But at the hospital, doctors found that the little body – starved of air, injured, exhausted – could not fight any longer.

Despite emergency care, Sajid died within an hour of his rescue.

When the news reached the village, the crowd that had erupted with joy moments earlier fell into a heavy, trembling silence. Women broke down in grief. Men covered their faces. Firefighters who had worked tirelessly through two nights stood still, some wiping their eyes.

The miracle had slipped away.

Director of Operations of the Fire Service and Civil Defense, Lieutenant Colonel Tajul Islam Chowdhury, at 10:00pm that Sajid was pronounced dead at 9:50pm.

“We rescued the child in an unconscious state. Then he was rushed to the hospital. There, after examining him, the doctor declared him dead,” said Tajul.

The rescue that fought against time

The rescue had pushed rescuers, villagers, and officials to their limits. Fire service teams dug through the night, lowered cameras, created a parallel 35-foot shaft and tunnelled sideways – battling collapsing soil, darkness, and the fear of losing the child at any moment.

“There is no technology in the world for an instant rescue from such depth,” Lieutenant Colonel Tajul Islam Chowdhury had said earlier, as teams continued inch by inch.

Sajid, the middle of three brothers, leaves behind an elder sibling who kept asking if he had been found, and a baby brother too young to know what has happened.

From hope to heartbreak

As villagers carry home the news, as rescue workers pack away their tools with heavy hearts, and as a mother holds the clothes of a child she can no longer hold — Koelhat finds itself grieving a child it prayed for, cried for, and believed it had saved.

In the end, Sajid came back from the darkness alive — only to leave this world shortly after.