Siachen soldier’s heroic battle for survival ends

An Army statement confirmed that he passed away at 11.45 am on Thursday morning. “Really sorry to inform everyone that Lance Naik Hanamanthappa is no more. He breathed his last breath at 11:45 am today,” Army officials said on Thursday. He was admitted at the hospital on Tuesday morning and was on ventilator since. His condition steadily deteriorated due to multiple organ failure.

Earlier, a statement issued by the Army had said, “Braveheart Lance Naik Hanamanthappa continues to remain extremely critical with worsening multiple organ dysfunction. He is on maximal clotting disorder shows no sign of reversal despite blood component support. He is on maximal life support with aggressive ventilation and dialysis. He has slipped into a deeper state of coma.” 

Born on 1 June 1982, in Betadur village in Dharwad district of Karanatka, Lance Naik Koppad got married on 22 April 2012. The youngest in the family, Lance Naik Hanamanthappa always wanted to join the Army. 

Hanamanthappa Koppad was a 33-year-old serving soldier who was enrolled in the 19th batallion of the Madras Regiment on October 25, 2002. The Army said that out of 13 years of total service, the soldier served ten of them in difficult and challenging areas. Koppad was posted on the Siachen Glacier from August 2015. He was deployed on one of the highest posts where temperatures can plummet well below minus 40 degrees Celsius and winds of up to 100km per hour.

Hanamanthappa spent six days buried alive under 25 feet of ice at the Siachen glacier after an avalanche came crashing down on the military post at Sonam on February 3. He was found in the fibre-reinforced hut that served as a base at 19,600 feet on the glacier. While nine soldiers, including one Junior Commissioned Officer, died, Koppad was the only one who escaped death, at least for a few days more than his colleagues.

The Lance Naik’s body, with the Tricolour draped on it, was taken to the capital’s Brar Square. From Brar Square, Hanamanthappa’s and will be flown to his home state, Karnataka. Last rites will be performed in his village Detdor in Dhadwaad.

Tributes have poured in for the braveheart as India salutes him. PM Modi said on Twitter: “He leaves us sad & devastated. RIP Lance Naik Hanumanthappa. The soldier in you remains immortal. Proud that martyrs like you served India.”