Rizwan Shamshuddin, a 38-year-old from Fort Kochi, should consider himself very lucky.
For, anyone who takes even a cursory glance at his mangled car would find it hard to believe that he managed to escape largely unhurt from what appears to be a fatal accident.
In fact, the image of the car kept doing the rounds on social media as the one involved in an accident that killed its occupant. So much so that his friends had to even post his pictures to prove that he was very much alive.
Mr. Rizwan was driving his way back home from Karnataka, where he has a farm, when the accident occurred on Tuesday around 2.30 a.m. While the police suspect that he had dozed off, Rizwan denied it and blamed it on a big gutter just ahead of the Ambattukavu metro station.
“It was raining and the lighting in the area was inadequate when I drove my car into what turned out to a big gutter the depth of which was hidden by the water filled to its brim. As soon as the car dropped into the gutter, I lost control of the car and in panic I probably hit the accelerator instead of the brake. The car spun a few times before it rammed the handrail,” recollected Mr. Rizwan.
Such was the impact that the handrail, which pierced through the left corner of the car, ended up jutting out through the rear right. Mr. Rizwan said that as he saw something breaking into the car he swayed away in a jiffy, which probably saved him, though it left him with a sore back.
He said that there was no scope for speeding at the time of the accident as the traffic was slow moving owing to the transportation of some huge machinery on a massive trailer.
He went to a private hospital at Palarivattom from where he was discharged around 6.30 a.m. The Aluva East police said that no case had been registered.
