: Exposure to mosquito repellent smoke can be dangerous as a youth died reportedly due to suffocation caused by fumes from an anti-mosquito coil inside a vehicle in Bhubaneswar.
The deceased was identified as Ajit Kumar Das alias Guga (34), a resident of Athantar village in the Balipatna area in Khordha district. The incident occurred at the Unit-4 Market in Bhubaneswar.
Ajit had gone to the Unit-4 Market in the wee hours of Sunday in his mini truck to load the vehicle with fish from the market. He reached the local fish market at around 1 am. As fish traders’ vehicles had not arrived at the market by that time, he slept inside the vehicle using a mosquito repellent coil for protection against mosquito bites.
Two hours later when the fish traders tried to wake him up from sleep, he did not respond. The traders got him out of the vehicle by breaking open the door and rushed him to the Capital Hospital, where he was declared dead.
The cause of death can be ascertained after postmortem, doctors said.
“We heard that he died after inhaling smoke released from the mosquito repellent coil. Some said he died due to a sudden cardiac arrest,” said the bereaved mother of the deceased.
Ajit’s wife denied the claim that he died due to smoke from the mosquito repellent coil. “The windshield glass was open when he was sleeping in the vehicle. If it was closed, he might have suffered due to mosquito repellent coil smoke,” she added.
