MOSCOW, 27 October — At least 546 of the more than 700 hostages freed yesterday from a Moscow theater have been hospitalized, many in serious condition after inhaling an unidentified gas special forces released to neutralize the Chechen gunmen, a Russian news report said.
During a check of Moscow hospitals, the web news service gazeta.ru said its reporters found only “four or five” of the injured had received bullet wounds. It said 349 ex-hostages were admitted to hospital No. 13, and 104 others to the veterans hospital No. 1. Many were suffering from gas poisoning and were in a state of shock. Nine of the hospitalized former captives had died from cardiac arrest or suffocation, gazeta.ru said.
Doctors at one Moscow hospital said 42 people were in a poor condition after being treated for poisoning by an unknown substance, and Germany’s ambassador said two German nationals among the hostages had also breathed in some sort of gas.
“Forty-two have been admitted. Their condition is poor. All were poisoned with an unknown gas, an unknown poison,” Vladimir Ryabinin, a doctor at Moscow’s top emergency Sklifosovsky hospital, told reporters.
“The two German hostages have been bodily unharmed but they are still under the impact of something which could definitely be some gas. They are drowsy,” German Ambassador Hans-Friedrich von Ploetz told reporters at the scene.
Eyewitnesses said that many of the scores of hostages were unconscious and inert in the arms of security forces bringing them out of the building.
“I saw about 60 people carried out. They were not moving at all. But there were no wounds at all on their bodies,” said Reuters photographer Sergei Karpukhin. “I saw others staggering out of the building but they didn’t seem to know where they were or what they were doing.”
One young man, who would not give his name, said he had been told by his girlfriend that gas had poured into the hall. “After that she didn’t remember anything. She has now recovered consciousness in hospital,” he told reporters.
After spending three long nights waiting for news outside the besieged theater, relatives of freed hostages moved their vigil to the gates of a nearby hospital, where they patiently waited in freezing rain to finally embrace their loved ones.
Only one former hostage was seen leaving City Hospital No. 13 into the arms of waiting relatives. Other families were told they would have to wait at least until today, and many had no information about the condition of their relatives.
Despite the frustration, the people gathered outside the hospital said their overriding emotion was relief. They came to the hospital after being notified that their loved ones were there — and not among the at least 90 hostages killed.
“I’m smiling because today is a joyous day,” said Viktor Teryokhin, who was waiting for his stepdaughter, 20-year-old Darya Kokoshko.
For some, however, the joy was mixed with painful uncertainty. Tatyana Chernyak said she knew her 27-year-old daughter Olga was inside. “But we can’t find her husband,” she said. “We need to find that boy.”
