Samba: An Ambulance driver from district Samba, who ferries COVID-19 patients, with a servitude outlook are the unsung Covid warriors of our Country. He ferries the Covid infected patients across North India including Delhi, Amritsar, GMC Jammu and other places.
Sardar Jarnail Singh has been assigned the job and he did it without any fear. Many times, he even himself lifted the patients and put them in the ambulance as the attendants refused to come near in the fear of contracting the coronavirus. He has so far admitted more than 300 positive patients in Samba district, and taken 103 in the last month alone. On an average since last year he has transported more than 1500 Covid patients to different cities.
As soon as the coronavirus hurricane ripped through the entire vulnerable population, Doctors, nurses, paramilitary, police officials, and ambulance drivers were now getting a grasp of what life was like on the front lines. Cheers and jeers, the community faced both, on and off the job. But samba-based ambulance driver Jarnail Singh was unfazed by the threat and the abuses being hurled at Covid warriors. “When soldiers fight to keep us safe, they don’t think about themselves. Everyone gets a time to act; this is our time,” he says, insisting that duty comes first.
Jarnail says service to humanity is the work of God, and it’s SEWA, a selfless service and I’m doing my part. “Yes it feels great when someone recognises my effort “says Jarnail when enquired on recognition he received after Lt Governor praised him over Twitter account. That was something I will never forget in my life, now my world has changed,
Wherever I go people recognise me and it gives me added strength. I wholeheartedly express my gratitude to the LG sir for recognising me and my effort” adds Jarnail Singh.
When it comes to his own, Jarnail says I have instructed my family members to stay inside the house because he often comes home after spending the majority of the day being in the vicinity of the virus and he does not want his family to get into trouble because of him. He has even stopped visiting friends and relatives. “I take care of myself by wearing PPE kits, using sanitizers and using masks but I know there is always an element of risk in my job but don’t let that fear overrule my conscious” says Jarnail.
