Mishap victim bleeds to death for want of treatment

Rajiv Bhatia

Zirakpur, June 8

A youth, hit by a vehicle, bled to death on the road along Hotel Sapphire in Zirakpur on Wednesday night. Adding to tragedy was the police apathy. Worse, even the 108 ambulance staff refused to take the victim to hospital. They said they would wait for the police first as the victim had died.

The accident took place around 11.30 pm and it took the police 40 minutes to reach the spot. Several calls were made to the police, but they chose to leave the victim to his fate. The victim, Azad Singh, was a resident of Sector 38B in Chandigarh. He was on his way to Zirakpur to finish a chore. Eyewitnesses said the victim died due to head injury.

When the ambulance service was called again, the person answering the call said, “If a road mishap victim is injured, we take him/her to hospital, but if a person is dead, we can’t pick up the body. In that case, we inform the police and leave.”

How could the ambulance staff without checking the victim’s pulse declare him dead? The police, on reaching the spot, exhibited the same insensitivity. They refused to take the victim to hospital, saying the ambulance would do it. One of the cops called the ambulance whose staff refused to do the needful.

After much persuasion, the policemen took the victim in their official vehicle. What left one shocked was the way they were hesitating to touch the victim. They wanted to bundle him into a tempo, but angry onlookers did not let them do so. The police response time to accident cases is 3 to 5 minutes. However, the distance between the spot and the area police station too matters.

“The unsympathetic action of the police and the ambulance staff are a glaring example of apathy. Besides departmental action, the erring staff should be given classes for community service,” said Advocate Raghav Dyal Gupta.

A Chandigarh-based doctor said had the victim got timely medical intervention, he wouldn’t have died. “The first 10 minutes are crucial,” he said.

Dera Bassi DSP Parshotam Singh said he was unaware of the accident. “The case will be investigated,” he added. When told that the ambulance refused to take the victim to hospital, he said 108 was a government-run facility and that he could not comment on it. The DSP went on to add that the Zirakpur police did not have any ambulance service.