Accident victim bleeds for 20 mins in Ghaziabad, many record videos, but don’t help

GHAZIABAD: There were many onlookers, but just one passed the conscience test — a cop who took the heavily bleeding man lying on the road to hospital. His bike hit by a vehicle, possibly from behind near IPEM college on Wednesday morning, Prashant Kumar (32) had lost a lot of blood from a gash in the head before traffic constable Sonu Singh pushed the crowd aside, lifted and put him in an auto and made a dash for the nearest hospital.

Prashant lay on the road without help for nearly 20 minutes. Many in the crowd that gathered had taken out their phones and were making videos. Others discussed calling police and an ambulance. But no one actually did anything. It was an accident case and no one wanted to get involved," Sonu (32) told this correspondent on Thursday.

Sonu said he was on the same road and Prashant had passed by minutes ago. "He was holding his helmet in his left hand and driving slowly. The accident happened around 100 metres ahead of where I was," Sonu said. The constable walked down when he spotted a crowd gathering and discovered what had happened.

As he rushed to Prashant's aid, Sonu said he pleaded with people to help arrange transport but no one came forward. "I tried to stop passing vehicles for help but none stopped either (despite seeing a cop in uniform)," Sonu said.

Eventually, he stopped an auto, forced its passengers to get off and took Prashant to Manipal hospital, which was 5km away.

Dr Faisal Bari, head of emergency at the hospital, said Prashant had a severe trauma injury in the head and was brought to the hospital in an unresponsive state. "The patient could have died if he was not given timely treatment. The family has taken him to Safdarjung hospital in Delhi as he needs surgery," he said.

Prashant's mother said he was the family's sole earning member.

"He needs brain surgery due to a blood clot. Doctors said too much blood has been lost in the accident. It's a shame that people who were present there did not come forward to help my son." Prashant's elder brother died when he was 19, in an accident.

Passersby often get cold feet about helping accident victims despite the good Samaritan law being passed in 2016 and assurance from the Supreme Court about legal protection of people who help accident victims. In 2021, the road transport ministry also launched a scheme to give a cash reward of Rs 5,000 to those who save the life of a road accident victim by taking them to hospital within the golden hour.

Raghavendra Kumar, also known as the ‘Helmet Man of India', said, "From my experience distributing helmets and helping accident victims, it's true that even after the good Samaritan law, people still hesitate to help a person who has met with an accident. People are not even aware about the good Samaritan law. Govt needs to advertise this important law more and more so that people know about it," he said.