Bikers’ rescue act saved driver of burning car

GURGAON: From the last evening to the next one, it has been a harrowing phase for the family of the two brothers – aged 16 and 19 – who lost their lives after being trapped inside a car that abruptly went up in flames on a stretch of road near Bijwasan on Wednesday evening. The teenagers, Pankaj and Sumit, were accompanied by their uncle, Yashvir, who was driving the car at the time and ended up being the lone survivor in this ghastly episode that took no more than a few minutes to play itself out.
The vehicle caught fire, its insides filled up with smoke, its central-locking system, reportedly, had failed, and the rescue effort, put together largely by passersby, could only yield limited results.
A day later, the tall, white marquee was visible from a distance in Choma Village near Gurgaon’s Palam Vihar. This place was marked out as the house of mourning, where the two boys, who had faced learning disabilities according to most accounts, lived with their parents and a sister. Outside the main gate was a small group of relatives gathered around a hookah, and the boys’ father, Suresh, sat with his hands on his face, too distraught to talk or to even listen.
“If it wasn’t for the rescuers, their uncle would have died too,” said one of the relatives. According to the relatives’ account, Yashvir, who was driving, immediately pulled over to one the side when he noticed that the cabin was filling up with smoke, only to realize that he, along with the two boys, was trapped.
“Luckily, some men on a couple of bikes stopped to help. They first tried breaking the window on the driver's side with a helmet. When that didn’t work, they broke it with a brick, and pulled Yashvir out, who was unconscious, and only came to when some water was splashed on his face,” the relative, who didn’t want to give out his name, told TOI.
Due to the thick fumes of smoke rapidly filling up the car, the rescuers couldn’t see that there were two more people trapped inside. “When he was pulled out of the car and regained consciousness, he told those around about the boys inside the car. But by then, the fire had intensified and the car was on in flames,” said Subhash Dahiya, another uncle of the deceased boys, who reached the accident site soon afterwards.
Yashvir, who suffered burn injuries on an arm, was hospitalized after the accident and returned home on Thursday.
The family members said Yashvir was driving a neighbour’s car – a Hyundai Santro which was bought very recently. “He was going to Bijwasan alone first, for some business. Then the younger one insisted that he wanted to come along. When they drove a little further, they came across the elder brother, Pankaj, and he too wanted go with them. This was fate,” Dahiya added.
Later in the day, a Delhi Police forensics team reached the accident site on Bijwasan Road, a 10-minute drive from Choma. “We got a team of experts to look at the site and analyze the remains of the charred vehicle. They have conducted biological, physical and chemical analyses there, and their conclusions will give us a better idea of what exactly happened,” said a senior police official.