Tree fall: Luck & sharp instincts saved them from possible death

Bengaluru: Businessman Nakhul Jagannath, 33, had his eyes on the road as he drove from Anil Kumble Circle towards BRV Theatre junction around 5pm Sunday. First there was a rustle of branches and twigs. Then came a loud creaking sound. Reacting swiftly, he bent towards his wife riding shotgun even as a huge tree, 15 metres tall with a trunk of 4m girth, came crashing down on their car.
While Nakhul's instinct of bending towards his wife, Priyanka Jade, 29, saved him, the couple's friend and businessperson Natasha Bhavnani, 37, was lucky as she was siting behind the shotgun seat and not the driver's seat, and had bent down to pick something up from a bag at that exact moment.
Nakhul, tall enough for his head to almost touch the roof of his car, said, "Instinctively, I bent towards my wife. Had I stayed in an upright position or moved to the right, the tree would have completely crushed me," he said from his hospital bed on Monday.
With a swollen eye and significant pain on the right side of his body, he said, "I'm waiting for the pulmonologist."
As she recuperates in the same hospital, Natasha too is still coming to terms with her near-death experience. "I was lucky I didn't sit behind Nakhul on the back seat. I'm 5'7", the tree would have definitely crushed me. What I have now is really a second life. I was leaning down to pick up something from a big bag next to me. I heard what sounded like hailstones on the car; it was the branches. In a split second, there was a loud creak, and even before I could react — I knew it was more than just the branch now — the metal roof over my head had sunk in. It hit my head, and my neck, face, and shoulder are still in pain from the impact, although there was no blood," she narrated.
"The tree came crashing down in seconds on Nakhul's side. I frantically tried to open the window or door. It was jammed. People came rushing and broke it open and got us all out," said Priyanka, as she sat next to her husband's bed.
Nakhul was bleeding profusely through his nose. Bystanders rushed him and Priyanka in an autorickshaw to a hospital on Cunningham Road. "I grabbed my phone and our things and followed them in another auto," said Natasha, who called up her brother, who was the first to come rushing to the hospital.
After a sleepless night, the trio is still coming to terms with what happened. "It happened to us, and we were saved by a stroke of luck," they kept telling themselves. "Each time I close my eyes, the whole incident comes rushing back," said Priyanka.
"It worries me to get back on the road. I don't usually take that road, but this time I did," chimed in Nakhul.
According to sources at Fortis Hospital, Nakhul is under treatment while Natasha is stable and likely to be discharged soon.