Karnataka police turn to unique ‘pressure cooker therapy’ to avoid breathing complications

Featured Image: Two police personnel inhale steam as a preventive measure against COVID-19 in Bengaluru.
Credits: The Hindu

People are known to follow various procedures in order to keep breathing difficulties away by keeping their air passages clear of bacteria and viruses, and thus keep the coronavirus infection at bay. Doctors advise patients to strengthen their immunity power against diseases through physical exercise and good food. People have resorted to breathing exercises in a big way as well, in the recent months.

In this regard, personnel at the Sarjapur police station in Bengaluru have come up with an ingenious practice to stop the Covid-19 infection in its tracks. They stand around a pressure cooker and inhale the steam coming out of it to strengthen their breathing mechanism. In addition, they perform breathing exercises, consume ayurvedic ‘kashaya’ concoction, and zinc tablets.

The police officers also place medicinal herbs such as neem, tulsi and eucalyptus leaves into the cooker, fill it up with water and then heat it. The steam coming out of the cooker is routed through a tube, which is then inhaled.

The pressure cooker is fitted with a steel pipe and two outlets through which two police officials can inhale the steam together, said Harish V, the station in-charge. The personnel who have completed their shifts inhale the steam before they go home. Sometimes, zinc tablets are given to the policemen and their family members. Pressure cookers have turned out to be the police’s apparatus for a satisfying breathing exercise.

Similar arrangements have also been made at police stations across the state of Karnataka.

In Barke police station in Mangaluru, the staff use a steel pipe having four openings tied to a wooden frame, with the pressure cooker placed inside the frame. Three out of the four outlets can be used for taking in the stream, while the fourth is attached to the pressure cooker. This setup was created by Inspector Jyotirlinga Honakatti, which he made at Belagavi last year.

Several other police stations in Chitradurga, Haveri and Shivamogga have replicated this arrangement in their own way to facilitate the staff to maintain their health and escape from infection.

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