The lucky ones escaped careening white car

Bengaluru: Gowramma Maranaya, 50, a resident of Kachanayakanahalli, was busy with her mobile when she heard a sudden, loud sound. “I heard a noise and the next moment, something hard hit my leg and I was thrown off the road. A little later, I got up and saw seven or eight persons lying on the road. A child had fallen in the middle of the road. Luckily, an autorickshaw driver stopped his vehicle and carried the girl to a safer place.A crowd gathered and helped us sit up and gave us water. But two women, one of them a senior citizen, who were dragged some distance, were grievously injured and unable to move,” recalls Gowramma, shuddering at the memory. The women were Radha Ramachandran and Sowmya Swaroop. Karthik K Rajagopal’s white Honda City had devastated Ramachandran’s family -- his wife and daughter-in-law perished in the accident, his granddaughter is orphaned while his traumatized son is yet to return from Canada. Gowramma and four others were plain lucky to get away with injuries at Hebbagodi bus stop. Four of them were working with a garment factory near Electronics City, and termed the accident a horrific one. Kondappa Ganapathi, a carpenter and resident of Kithaganahalli, said he was waiting for a bus when he saw the white car moving recklessly towards him. “Before we could move, the car hit us. It knocked us down and stopped. The driver and his co-passenger opened the doors and escaped. After getting first aid at Sparsh Hospital, I moved to ESI Hospital. I have bruises all over my body,” he said. Rani Gunashekar is in a serious condition with head and back injuries, said her cousin Vasantha Rajashekara. “Doctors at Sparsh Hospital said they have to operate on her head and backbone and it would cost a lot of money. We are planning to shift her to another hospital,” she said. Rani is a resident of Chandapura and works in a garment factory.
THE INJURED Papu Nidhi, 33, and Varalakshmi Venkatesh, 28, garment workers from Kithanganahalli Kondappa Ganapathi, 32, carpenter from Kithaganahalli Rani Gunashekar, 30, resident of Chandapura Gowramma Maranaya, 50, resident of Kachanayakanahalli
-- Alisha Deshmukh