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When 24-year-old Remya called her home here from AMRI Hospital in Kolkata in the wee hours on Friday, her mother did not think that she was hearing from her daughter for the last time.
Though Remya said she saw smoke coming from the ground floors of the hospital where she was working as nurse, Usha did not even remotely think that her daughter was going to be among scores of victims of the devastating fire.
But only when TV channels started showing the visuals of the inferno, Usha realised that Remya's life was in real danger.
She told her mother that the hospital was filled with thick smoke and fume and it was very difficult for her to breath, a close relative here said.
In fact, before she completed the talk the telephone line got disconnected. Later, it was a military nurse from Kolkata who informed Remya's relatives that she was one of the two Malayali nurses who died in the fire.
The other Keralite nurse who died in the fire was Vineetha (24), hailing from a poor family from Kottayam. She joined AMRI Hospital just two months back after quitting a hospital in Chandigarh.
According to Remya's relatives, she had visited them three months back and stayed for a few days before returning to Kolkata.
Remya, who hailed from a family of modest means, was attending a old patient when the fire broke out.
Her father, a daily wager, died before Remya completed her nursing course. It was with great difficulty that her mother and brother supported her to complete the course.
90 people, most of them patients in sleep, were on Friday choked to death in the fire in the multi-speciality private hospital.