You are dying on the road? I don’t care!!
You are getting raped in a car? Why should I bother?
You are being eve-teased in the market? It’s not my responsibility!!
This is what our cold, callous attitude towards others is.
We have lost many lives, we have seen many suffering on the roads who encountered fatal accidents, we come across many asking for help in the middle of nowhere, but we choose to walk away as it is not OUR JOB to take care of that! Nirbhaya Rape Case and Nirbhaya Death are gruesome examples of our insensitive approach.
Here is another completely verbatim experience of a gentleman, Mr. M Yeshwanth Nag from Hyderabad, who encountered a similar occurrence and how he felt in the midst of that. May be, this can shake us from our slumber and instill a sense of responsibility so that we start acting like humans.
“Today morning at about 10.45 AM I was driving near Kukatpally, Hyderabad near the South India Shopping Mall. A huge crowd had gathered there to check out an accident.
A guy who was driving a Luna had been hit by a vehicle and was lying on the ground, bleeding from the head. There were at least 25 people surrounding the fallen man, a few of them were pouring water on the victim who was bleeding profusely, while a few people were talking on the phone.
I had assumed that medical help had been called for but after about 5 minutes I realised with horror that nobody had called up an ambulance. So I dialed 108 for help. The person on the line asked me questions for which I had no answers, like what was the name of the victim, his address, his phone number, his Aadhar number, his bike number, etc. After about 4 minutes of frustrated conversation with the customer care (during which his head kept bleeding) they asked me to hold the line and then there was complete silence for 3 more minutes. I hung up in frustration knowing that we were wasting precious time and tried to get that guy to a hospital. But to my horror, nobody wanted to accompany me since it was an “accident case” and started moving away, maybe also because he “looked” like a poor, illiterate man due to his attire. I don’t know.
Feeling helpless, I called 108 again in the meantime trying to get the victim off the road. Luckily this time they recognised my previous call and promised help which they had already sent. Within 5 minutes an ambulance arrived and we all lifted him inside.
So, the crowd dispersed. I was about to leave too, when I noticed that the ambulance had gone ahead, but had been standing still for some time – almost 10 minutes. When I inquired, I was told that they were waiting for his immediate family (whom we had contacted through his mobile)! They had just started from Nampally & would have taken at least 40 mins to reach at the peak traffic hour. So, the thing was because it was an “accident case” the ambulance needed someone to come and admit the guy! Feeling shocked & stunned at his attitude, I accompanied the ambulance to the hospital to get that person admitted.
Again the hospital people wanted an FIR to admit him, so we rushed him to emergency by making a few “calls” I could get him to be attended upon. The doctor said he will survive, but if we had delayed by 15 more minutes, the victim would have continued to have a haemorrhage and would have been very critical & possibly dead.
I was pretty shaken after the incident, more so at the callous attitude of the people. For all I know, it could have been anybody of my friends or family in his place. Blaming the system is easy, but nobody did the simple thing of even calling an ambulance, or taking him to a hospital. More than anything, the 25-30 people who stood there and did nothing, bothered and scared me.
Sharing this in the hope that more awareness can be raised about such situations to act rather than simply watch.”
We are sincerely hoping that Mr. Nag’s story is able to put some empathy is our hearts and about time we decide to offer a helping hand when we face such disastrous events, right in front of us.
Jago India Jago!!
