By IANS
Islamabad : Doctors at the Rawalpindi General Hospital tried desperately for 41 minutes to revive former prime minister Benazir Bhutto after she was shot but failed in their efforts, a report submitted to the Punjab government’s health department said.
Bhutto was declared dead exactly 41 minutes after she was brought the hospital’s emergency department at 5.35 p.m. with open wounds on her left temporal bone from which “brain matter was exuding”, the report said.
It said Bhutto was not breathing at the time and her pulse and blood pressure “were not recordable”.
According to the report, “immediate resuscitation (process) was started” and she was taken to the operation theatre where she was attended by a team of doctors headed by Musaddiq Khan, principal of the Rawalpindi Medical College, Dawn reported Friday.
“Left antrolateral thoracotomy for open cardiac massage was performed,” the hospital report said, adding: “In spite of all the possible measures she could not be revived and (was) declared dead at 18.16 hours (6.16 p.m.).”
An autopsy was not carried out at the hospital “because the district administration and police had not requested the hospital authorities (for this)”, the report said.
Bhutto was shot not far from where Pakistan’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan was killed by an assassin’s bullet on Oct 16, 1951.