AGENCY
NEW DELHI: Siachen braveheart Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad, who survived miraculously for six days under a huge ice-and-snow debris after an avalanche hit his post before losing life to multiple organ failure, was on Sunday awarded the Sena Medal here.
The doughty soldier’s wife Mahadevi Ashok Bilebal received the medal from Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat at Army Day parade here.
A resident of village Betadur in Dharwad district of Karnataka, the Madras regiment soldier was pulled out alive from under 30 ft of ice-and-snow debris where he lay buried for six days on the unforgiving Siachen glacier.
Dubbed as the ‘miracle man’, the soldier had managed to stay alive for six days in minus 45 degrees Celsius temperature, buried under ice and snow after an avalanche struck his post on February 3.
