Ambulance accident survivor recalls harrowing escape, still in shock over friend's death
Kozhikode: A woman lost her life after an ambulance caught fire after crashing into a transformer near Kozhikode’s Aster MIMS Hospital. Sulochana, a Nadapuram native, died in the accident.
Praseetha, her neighbour and close friend, was with her at the time of the accident and is struggling to come to terms with the traumatic event.
The accident occurred when the ambulance collided with an electric pole and caught fire. Praseetha, who was accompanying her neighbour Sulochana to the hospital, managed to escape from the burning vehicle sustaining injuries on her lips, hands, and eyes during the frantic escape. Sulochana was strapped tight onto the stretcher, and was unable to escape on time.
Praseetha was admitted to the hospital early in the morning and later returned home in Nadapuram’s Kakkamvelly and recounted the incident.
The driver of the ambulance managed to break the glass to escape the fire, and it was through this shattered window Praseetha made her desperate exit. Unfortunately, she suffered injuries to her limbs and eyes, and due to a fracture in her jawbone, she is currently unable to speak.
Sulochana’s daughter resides abroad, and her son is in Ernakulam. Sulochana had been a dance teacher in Nadapuram for ten years before health issues forced her to stop teaching. Praseetha accompanied her friend to the hospital as part of surgery for a heart-related ailment.
Recurring ambulance accidents in Kozhikode
Kozhikode: Over the past thirty years, ambulance accidents at various locations in Kozhikode have claimed the lives of 25 people.
More than 20 such incidents, both minor and major, have been registered by the police. In the same period, ambulance accidents in the district have also resulted in injuries to 50 people.
In March 2009, a collision with a lorry on the national highway at Thiruvangoor in Koyilandy resulted in the death of four people, including a newborn baby being transported to the Medical College.
Two decades ago, an accident in Vengalam involving an ambulance carrying a dead body collided with a bus, resulting in three fatalities. Similarly, a family of three died when an ambulance transporting the body of a young man who died in a vehicle accident in Qatar collided with a private bus. Eight people sustained serious injuries in this accident.
In June 2008, an ambulance carrying the body of a youth who died in an accident in Bengaluru overturned into a river near Thottilpalam, resulting in the death of five people, including his parents.