Chennai: Crowdfunding raises Rs. 16 lakh for 4-year-old's surgery
What's the story
An Indian crowdfunding website has raised Rs. 16 lakh in a week for the surgery and treatment of a severely injured four-year-old girl. Chennai's Dhanyashri Sridhar suffered grave injuries after a man fell on her from a building's fourth floor last week. With 1,224 donations so far, the project on milaap.org now has to collect only Rs. 84,260 in 22 days. Here's more.
The accident
Suicidal man jumped from building, fell on Dhanyashri
On January 28, a man, in a suicide bid, jumped from the fourth floor of a building and fell on Dhanyashri who was standing below with her grandfather. She suffered critical head injuries and fractures on her spine and legs. Admitted in Apollo Hospital, she underwent a brain decompression surgery on January 31 and was put on ventilator support. She has been recovering since.
The saviours
The men behind the crowdfunding project
Behind the crowdfunding is Andharboyz, a WhatsApp group of 15 friends who live in Old Washermanpet, the same Chennai neighborhood as Dhanyashri. Having previously raised funds on WhatsApp for schools, the physically-challenged and the Chennai floods, they found out about Dhanyashri's accident on January 30. Since her situation needed more money and greater participation than previous cases, they decided to go crowdfunding.
Information
People from around the world are donating for Dhanyashri's treatment
Launched on January 31, the campaign has had donations from across the world ranging from Rs. 100 to Rs. 50,000, reported the BBC. According to Milaap, Dhanyashri's daily cost of hospital treatment is Rs. 1.5 lakh and her surgery cost north of Rs. 5 lakh.