Nurse who saved one newborn in Islamabad hospital fire mourns the 14 she couldn't reach
A nurse's instinctive eight-second rescue saved one newborn from a deadly Islamabad hospital fire; she now grieves for the 14 others.
Razia Noreen was preparing injections in a room adjacent to the nursery at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad when she spotted flames. Without hesitation, she dropped the syringe and ran into the nursery, lifting one newborn and pressing the child against her chest to shield it from the spreading fire and thick smoke.
CCTV footage shows her emerging just eight seconds later and handing the baby to a doctor. She then turned back toward the flames, but the nursery had already become an inferno. A government inquiry noted that conditions inside the room "deteriorated catastrophically within approximately two minutes."
Noreen and a colleague dropped to the floor, where the smoke was thinner, and attempted to crawl back in. But the smoke choked her, and the flames forced her back. Within minutes, she learned that the other 14 newborns in the nursery had died. She collapsed in shock.
The baby she carried out was the sole survivor. The 51-second CCTV clip has turned Noreen into a national hero, with the government announcing she will receive the Sitara-i-Khidmat, one of Pakistan's most prestigious civil awards, along with a financial reward.
Noreen, a Christian in predominantly Muslim Pakistan, does not see her act as heroic. "Can any mother watch a child burning in a fire?" she asked. "Mothers do not do favors for their children. It is their duty."
But she remains consumed by grief. She said she has barely slept since the fire, feels physically ill, and at times collapses when memories of the flames and children overwhelm her. "Those babies do not let me sleep," she said.
She described nurses as becoming like mothers to newborns separated from their own mothers, feeding them and watching over them. "I acted as a mother," she said. "I did not care about my life."
Through tears, she addressed the mothers of the 14 babies who died: "Please forgive me for not being able to save your babies."
The fire's cause remains under investigation, with officials initially citing an exploding air-conditioning unit and later a nebulizer blast. The government inquiry identified serious failures in fire safety and emergency response, leading to the suspension of eight hospital officials.