Kashmir's first floating ambulance operates on Dal Lake

Tariq's boat has been built into an ambulance. It floats on the Dal Lake of Jammu and Kashmir. Through his floating ambulance, he is helping Covid Patients.

Tariq Ahmad Patloo recovered from Covid-19 last year started the ambulance service to help patients fight the stigma and fear associated with the virus.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought many acts of kindness from strangers across India who has overcome their own hardships in order to help others through different sources they can. 

Such an act of kindness came from Kashmir’s Srinagar recently where a man who has recently recovered from coronavirus has started his own Covid-19 ambulance service. But the ambulance service started by Tariq Ahmad Patloo is no ordinary service. It is a floating ambulance service, meaning it provides boat ambulances in Srinagar’s Dal Lake.

"Considering the situation at hospitals and homes due to rising cases, I’ve set up this facility for people, which has PPE kits, stretchers & wheelchair," Patloo told ANI.

Last year in 2020 when he got mild fever after be visited his aunts funeral ceremony his own community had refused to ferry him to hospitals or back to his houseboat from the banks of Dal Lake for fear of contracting Covid-19.

“I had to quarantine myself for 20 days at home and every time I needed to visit the hospital, many shikjara-wallas (boatmen) turned me down. I was shunned by my own community and neighbours," Patloo had said.

On Friday, Kashmir witnessed as many as 5,443 cases of Covid-19, the highest single-day spike in cases in the union territory. The total number of cases of Kashmir are 2,06,954.