Runaway Hero

After losing his right leg in Kargil, Major (retd) Devender Pal Singh teaches people how to use sports as a healing tool

- Gunjan Sharma

He was declared dead on arrival at a remote clinic where he was taken after his unit came under attack during the Kargil war in 1999. Ma-jor Devender Pal Singh, called DP by his friends, however, had other plans. After being miraculously revived by a visiting anaesthetist, Singh fought his way back to life.

Major Singh, who was 29 then, was commanding a unit at the Chicken's Neck area in Akhnoor, hardly 80 metres from the Line of Control. It was early in the morning on July 15, 1999. At around 6am, the Pakistani army started firing at Indian positions. Amidst the chaos, Singh heard the familiar whistling sound of a mortar shell. But before he could run to an open area, the mortar started its descent and fell on soft ground barely five feet from where he was standing. Singh dived and lay on the ground, but the shrapnel pierced the right side of his body and mutilated his leg.

When he regained consciousness after three days, Singh found that he had lost his leg, a severe infection had paralysed his intestine and around 50 shrapnel were still embedded in his chest, ribs and elbows. "The doctors told my parents that I was dangerously ill. They had lost all hope. But I didn't," he says.