School van kills yet another child

A five-and-a-half-year-old boy died a couple of hours after he was hit by a school van he had alighted from near his home in Puthu Nagar, Arambakkam village, near Padappai in Kancheepuram district.

The driver, according to the police, did not realise that the child had gone around to the front of the vehicle to cross the road.

The boy was rushed for medical attention in the same van, treated for his injuries and returned home. But after a few minutes, he complained of pain and subsequently died.

Akash Vincent is the youngest among three children of Vincent Ramaswami (46), a tailor, and Valarmathi (40), a homemaker. Akash was an LKG student at Everest Nursery and Primary School in Padappai, about five kilometres away from his home. He was on his way back home in a school van, a Mahindra maxi-cab, when the accident happened.

The van had dropped off the last batch of students, including Akash, in Pudu Nagar. The driver, R. Arivazhagan (23) of Orathi village, was trying to make a U-turn when the van’s front portion hit Akash, injuring him on his right thigh.

The accident took place at 5.15 p.m. He was immediately taken to a private hospital in Padappai in the same van. Doctors at Saai Hospital bandaged the wound to prevent bleeding, and after consent from the boy’s relatives, stitched 7 sutures. A doctor said the hospital was not informed by the school staff or the boy’s relatives that the injury on Akash’s right thigh was due to an accident.

Had they been informed, an entry would have been made in the accident report register and the local Manimangalam police station would have been contacted. The boy would have then been referred to a private hospital or government hospitals, after first aid and emergency care was administered.

“I brought him back home and he was normal. All of a sudden, he began to complain of acute pain in the abdomen. We rushed him back to the same hospital but were asked to take him elsewhere as the hospital did not have facilities for advanced treatment,” said Mr. Vincent.

Akash was then rushed to the government hospital in Sriperumbudur where doctors declared him as brought dead. His body was handed over to relatives on Wednesday after post-mortem.

The exact cause of the accident would be ascertained after the post-mortem report was received, a police officer said. Van driver Arivazhagan was arrested under Sections 279, 337 and 304 (a) of the Indian Penal Code.