Three victims of the Muzaffarpur-Yesvantpur train accident near Sitheri were brought to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital on Wednesday afternoon for further investigations.
Two of the victims are from Bihar, and were travelling by air-conditioned coaches, while the third was in the S-7 compartment. Dilip Bagadi (29) from Burdhwan, was travelling with his wife to Bangalore to visit their son who works in a hotel there. Dilip, who was on the upper berth fell and sustained a spinal injury.
When he regained consciousness, he realised he was in excruciating pain. Dilip is an agricultural labourer, said a friend who was with the family. “We could not provide a local address as we don’t know anyone here. We told the hospital authorities that we would take another train but they sent us here,” Dilip said.
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Swapnil Singh, a final-year mechanical engineering student in a Bangalore college, has sustained fractures to his right shoulder and arm. When the doctors came to enquire about his health, he said, “I came here at 1 p.m. and I have not eaten yet. Could you please ensure that I get food?” As he had lost his mobile phone in the accident he requested a hospital staff member to lend him his mobile phone.
“I made a call to my father phone and told him I had been injured,” Swapnil said. “I was on the side upper berth. I felt a vibration and then I fell from the berth. My hand was pinned in the iron angle below the seat in the 3 AC compartment and I was extricated only after the floor of the train was cut open,” he said.
Krishnakumar Sachiraj, (53), had also lost his mobile phone. He said he was a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar and had been travelling with his son. “I fell off the berth and there were bags and suitcases all over me. There were also some people walking over me,” he recalled. A chest CT scan was taken at the hospital to rule out serious injuries.
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A doctor from the railway hospital also visited the patients.
At Chennai Central Station, crowds swelled all day as the accident had led to other trains being delayed.
Passengers sat, sprawled and slept on the floors, waiting to hear what would become of their travel plans. Around 5 p.m., railway officials announced several train cancellations and diversions.