LAHORE: As the chaos subsided at the cramped Emergency Ward of the Lahore General Hospital Sunday evening, only those with minor injuries remained in the ground floor unit.

Among them was 11-year-old Danish Masih, who is being treated for shrapnel wounds in the arm, chest and groin. “We couldn’t find him for two-and-a-half-hours,” said his father Razzaq, with the pallor of a parent who feared the worst. “Then we found him in a bathroom of the church, unconscious in a pool of his own blood.”

Along the soiled sheets of the hospital bed where Danish lay, ran a thick plastic tube, draining “dirty blood” from the boy’s chest into a plastic container.

As if unaware of the gashes ripped into his tiny body by what his father said were ball bearings, Danish stared blankly at the ceiling; his gaze transfixed on something that was not there. He did not react when his father called out his name, and there was no response - not a blink - as Razzaq waved his hands before the boy’s eyes.

“He did not seem to realise what had happened to him when we brought him here today,” his father added. “When the doctor came to attach his catheter, he kept asking when he will be discharged... We are just so grateful that he is alive.”

The other recovering patients being treated in the emergency ward told stories of how they wrestled the bombers.

“Our own boys were standing at the entrance when the bombers tried to enter,” said church priest in charge Padre Irshad Ashknad, a hint of pride in his voice.

“Our boys did not run away from the bomber when they saw the belt - they fought them.”

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2015

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