[neel385]

@fine69...I do not think that you have any reason to explain what you did.

To start off...what you did was commendable. Period. The fact as stated by you was that there were many bystanders, but no one to really offer a helping hand. So in this crowd of "lookers" you were the "doer" which is a BIG thumbs up in my book!! So again, well done.

That having being said, we can all look back and draw lessons from your experience. Hindsight as we all know is always 6/6. So if we can home on to some things being done differently, we must, and I guess, that should be the motive of the members replying to the post rather than pointing out the mistakes that someone presumably committed.

So people, may I request everyone to kindly offer suggestions as to what could have been done differently keeping in mind that we may all benefit from this experience of a fellow BHPian.

My two bits:
1. It is advisable to get the police into the scene ASAP. If the wounds are not life threatening, it might be better to wait for their arrival.
2. In case the injuries are serious, help to take the patient to the nearest hospital, a GH being the best as no payments will be required initially, but even in this case, contact the police and inform them to come to the hospital.
3. Ensure that you take down all details of both the parties involved e.g. in this case, the details of the motorcycle driver and the registration n umber of the vehicle.

[S2!!!]

with neel385. Where no one wishes to get into a mess (and that too someone else's) in their busy lives, you got right into it to help an unknown stranger and that itself is commendable. At that point of time you would be nothing less than confused as to what next when you don't see even a single helping hand and no one willing to assist you. Even when the auto guy asked you to follow him I can kind of empathise with you and your anxiety that of helping the wounded fellow but at the same time being on time for your office routine. This is a learning experience for all of us and would help many in figuring out what to do when found in such situations. Thanks for sharing.

[KiloAlpha]

That was a mighty fine thing you did, @fine69! I doff my cap to you.

I agree with @neel385 - it is generally a good idea to get the police involved in case of any accident.
Keep in mind that in the absence of any assurance of payment, private hospitals usually will restrict themselves to stabilizing the condition of the patient and referring them to a government hospital (if they are being ethical, that is). They are running a business at the end of the day and will be money-minded.

Please, do not stop doing whatever you did that day? The world is a nicer place for people like you.

[Tapish]

Originally Posted by fine69

Today morning while driving on my way to the office I witnessed an accident where in a bike had rammed into an elderly gentleman (a security guard of some pvt company) who was crossing the road.
I thought I'd share this with you so that I'm better equipped (in terms of knowledge) next time I'm into any such situation.

A very commendable deed Vikram Sir.
I have been in a similar situation before when a scooterist banged into my stationery car from the side and went unconscious. I took him to the nearest hospital (Max) where I had to pay about 1200 for his initial treatment before his folks arrived.

Even so, I believe you should have made that call to the police and also noted the number of the bike.

Well done.

Cheers,
Tapish

[zaks]

A very honest effort from your side to take care of that gentleman. I wish there were more people like you. But one important thing, always note down the registration number of the vehicle involved in the accident- this comes first, even before first aid. You should have asked the bike guy to go in the auto to the hospital with that gentleman or in your car and make them pay for his treatment. Call police if you feel the injury is more and in cases of elderly people because they are fragile and might be hurt internally which would not show up immediately.

[mac187]

A very commendable job done by you. Sure, in hindsight lot of things would be said/ questioned, for that I would like to quote from a movie here - "Most people talk alot, but few are up to the moment"

As suggested by others, its very important to follow few steps, putting few which I can think of..
If its a small injury let the two parties sort it out or call the cops. I say so coz sometimes the cops want money for doing nothing! Major accident one should report to the cops, best way to get them early is to go to the nearest signal/ circle and get the cop yourself to the accident spot coz we really cannot count on the cops to show up in a hurry. Also call up 108 for medical support (dont know if it works across India). Meanwhile do few things like,

1. If the injured is losing conscious try to get some basic info out of him. Else look for personal belongings like ID card, Mobile, Wallet etc..
2. Take pictures of the vehicle number, accident spot and vehicle damage. All this can be used during 'whos mistake it was' arguments.
3. Do not let people involved in the accident get away from your sight. They should be there till the family/ friends of other party arrive.
4. All expenses to be borne by the one who is fine (though it may not be his mistake), things can be settled later between them.
5. It is always better to avoid posh pvt hospitals. Even if the person looks to be from a well-to-do family.

It may not be possible to do all the things in the heat of the situation but fews things can help long way.

I have one thing to say about the crowd, as far as my experience goes, most of them just wanna see stuff. There will be few "Smart" ones who talk about what should be done, whos mistake it was etc.. best is to put them on spot, like ask them to call the cops or tell them to pick the injured guy up, they will chicken out. I feel these guys are the ones who worsen the situation. Either we block them out or get them to shut-up.

[New.Novice]

Originally Posted by ssh1979

I'm going to be a bit blunt here and don't know how many will agree here. I have a question first, why didn't you continue calling the police or ambulance? This is an accident, you were a viewer and anyone can report the accident to the police.

May be my experience shall give you some answers.

Around November last year I had to go to new delhi railway station from gurgaon to pick up my parent-in-laws a little while after mid night.

For some reason, and I still dont know what that reason was as I always..always take the NH8 the moment I come out from my sector road, I did not take the NH8 and decided to remain on service lane till Toll Plaza that night.

A blue Alto, West Bengal registration, took over me and went past. I was trailing it and can say the guy was doing between 80 to 90. Well.. fair .. it was about 1 in the night and the service lane was almost empty.

After about two kilometers we both crossed the Signature Tower traffic light which obviously was in blinking yellow mode at that time.

There is a expressway entry point after it. Now the buggers have concrete blocks starting from middle of the service lane to give the entry to expressway with almost zero illumination.

I saw the alto first going a little left and then right.. and there it was. A loud thud followed by alto getting airbound. Two summersaults, along skid and it landed on its side. It all happened within a couple of seconds.

The guy had hit the divider. First couple of seconds my mind was blank. Then I rushed towards the alto and saw the driver trapped in his seat with no co-passenger. Since the car was standing on its side, one door was blocked and there was no way I could have pulled the guy out from the other door which was skyward.

I broke open the wind shield and pulled the guy out. Surprisingly he was not that badly hurt to the extent I had imagined. I could see that he was under the influence of the alcohol.

While he lay on the side of the road shaken I tried figuring out if he had some bad/internal injury somewhere. It was then that he told me that there is another person in the car who was at the back seat who I could not see before.

I tried approaching that person from the dicky but alto had a CNG cylinder there. The guy inside seemed unconcious. I yelled but he wasnt responding.

In the mean while an auto and a safari had stopped by and the auto driver and two guys from safari came out to help us. While the two guys held the car at its place two of us climbed up to pull the guy out from the other door. We could not have taken the risk to get the car on ground as there was this guy still inside and we had no idea how or what kind of injuries he had.

By the time we had this other guy also pulled out of the car and lay him down by the side of the road, he gained conciousness but was bleeding badly.

Now we had about 10 to 15 people (truckers and others) standing there. It was at this time I called up police and told them about the accident.

When I was explaining them the location of the accident, the guy who was driving the alto reached me and requested me not to call the police as they both were drunk.

I was shocked. I tried explaining him boss your friend may die.. you need all the help you could. All this while the police man was on hold listening to our conversation. When this guy didnt bugde, I got back on phone and told the police man that the person does not want to call the police. And to my sheer shock / surprise (in the absence of a better adjective) the police man very calmly said ok and disconnected the phone.

Anyways, the auto driver agreed to drop the two of them at the hospital near by and all of us left the scene. When I came back at about 3 in the night. I went back to the accident site. Alto was still there with no traces of two gentleman inside it.

Next day morning, on my way to work, I saw the alto was also taken away.

So my friend, I dont know about other places. In gurgaon, if you tell them that you are not a party in the accident. The police wont even bother to come over. At least ..thats what my experience says.

[sierrakamat]

I am a doctor and on occasions that good Samaritans have brought accident victims often leading to 3 scenarios
1.the victim and the family is grateful
2. the victim is grateful and the family immediately wants to shift the patient to better/govt facility depending on their financial status
3.but 8 of 10 times the family blames us for having "sided"with the Samaritans/perpetrators of the accident create a huge ruckus and are more interested in teaching the other fellow a lesson than getting any treatment.
IN all three circumstances the police inevitably get involved.
SO the good samaritan be aware the once you help a victim you are COMMITTED to the end nothing wrong in that but always get the police involved at the beginning and always take the patient to the nearest govt hospital so and to avoid any hassles if possible get a bystander to accompany you to give a detailed account of the incident because many times i have seen the one who brings the patient is often accused of having caused the accident.

[ronin]

I have on multiple occasions have taken injured people to nearby hospitals, mostly in Kerala. Never have I been asked to stay till the injured recovered nor have I been asked to sign any forms or for money. On the other hand, I was always asked if there would be more injured coming in and how bad the accident was. I have also left the hospital as soon as the injured was being attended to.

I distinctly remember a case where the doctor involved instructed me to leave the casualty since the guy I took in was drunk and that he might try to fleece some money out of me. It was a govt hospital.

Whatever the consequences, be it a few minutes delay for ourselves or even a little bit of hassle from the authorities, I firmly believe it is not greater than a human life or limb. There is always someone watching from above judging us. And the age old Question of " What if the injured person was family?"

[gopa99]

What would be the emergency number one has to drive to call the cops to the site of the accident (in bangalore)? And what is the emergency number for the ambulance (in bangalore)?
It would be a nice idea to have it on all our mobiles.

[anandjha]

Commendable thing that you've done. But as many others have commented, good or bad, you should've involved the cops. Most of the times, it turns out to be a good experience. As far as bribe or something similar is concerned it's the price we pay for bypassing law. It's mutual, and convenient to both parties.

[CADAVER]

@fine69

I whole heartedly thank you for your good deed .


I can understand your limitations as I was victim of another accident and I was involved in helping in some other

1. in 2006 i was going office , around police control room area the road was empty , behind me was huge truck and few other bikes , things turned nasty when a stupid alto driver suddenly came in front of me and stalled , he was parked on the road side and he reversed in full speed and jumped in front of me, i was @40-50 kmph didn't have much time to react , i was able to apply brake but alto was very close so my bike crashed into it i flew 15 feet and fell head first on road my helmet saved life , alto took off but a municipal lady sweeper came to me first later joined by few cab drivers , i was in trance like condition since though i had bike for 10 years it's first accident , after few seconds i got up and walked towards footpath to sit bike was totalled ,

though i wasn't injured it was good to see people actually tried to help which is rare in cities

2. 2007 i came out for dinner from office at Hitech city was about to cross road , i heard a thud ahead and saw a GE employee was hit by bus and was thrown 30 feet away , i literally froze but gained control ran towards him so did 2 others , the victim's skull broke and bleeding , it's not advisable to move him but that place was waterlogged we were worried so shifted him aside , he was alive but due to injury his body paralyzed instantly and both hands turned around . we took his access card and called GE as they have their own ambulance right across road but unfortunately that time it went 5km away to get doctor , meanwhile i called 108( ambulance ) miraculously it came in 3 minutes ( miracle because it's parked at police station 3km away and it's rush hour - bike takes 8 min) they came and after seeing victim one emt informed police over wireless , nearest govt trauma center was 20km , i gave them GE Employee emergency number , he was taken to nearest private hospital with which many companies tied up.

after 20 days i got phone from 108 manager and police , told them i didn't know victim gave bus number to police and enquired his condition , both told me he was in coma 15 days after which condition was stable
lost track after that

[Jakku]

It is really commendable what you have done and is really an example of how we should treat fellow human beings. A salute to your act and for all others who have done so.

Originally Posted by sierrakamat

1.the victim and the family is grateful
2. the victim is grateful and the family immediately wants to shift the patient to better/govt facility depending on their financial status
3.but 8 of 10 times the family blames us for having "sided"with the Samaritans/perpetrators of the accident create a huge ruckus and are more interested in teaching the other fellow a lesson than getting any treatment.
..... many times i have seen the one who brings the patient is often accused of having caused the accident.

I really understand these scenarios, being on the other side, below is my experience.

Here I would like to narrate my experience in one incident where I had taken a person to hospital (I am lucky enough that I had to face such a situation just once in my life time).

This incident was way back in Sep 2005. I was new to Bangalore (just 3 months after reaching here) and was not well verse with the direction/ locations etc. and Kannada. New circumstances and work was going in full swing in our office, hence was always very late to return home. On this fateful day, I was returning home and it was approx 1:00 am. I was staying at Doddanekkundi, off ORR nearby to Marathahalli (next to Karthik Nagar Bus stop). I was on my bike and just crossed Marathahalli Jn:, another bike overtook me which nearly missed hitting me. I honked at the guy which apparently irritated and offended him. He stopped and came to me and I never realised/ thought he is going to trash me. I escaped with a few heated words as this guy was totally drunk, I could manage to move quickly from there and also I had not switched off the bike. Then this guy overtook me and zoomed off. I just watched the tail lamp and ensured this guy is well ahead of me and is not stopping anywhere. I turned left at Karthik Nagar bus-stop, barely 50m ahead, there is a service road coming and joining ORR and by the time I turned, I could see this guy hitting some vehicle. I stopped for a couple of seconds and watched the proceedings, I could see the other vehicle was a tractor and the driver got down and was looking at this guy. I never wanted to help this guy, but I don't know what made me go there to the spot and end in deep trouble. The number plate of both the vehicles were written in Kannada and I could not read it.

I would say the tractor driver was a nice chap as he told me in "his Hindi" not to get involved. I looked at this chap who fought with me just mins back and his face was pleading to me to help him. The tractor driver helped me in getting an auto to take this guy to hospital and he left. The auto wallah was only ready based on my assurance to follow him to hospital. This guy was taken to Manipal hospital (the only hospital I knew then), by that time this guy had totally fainted. The auto guy was really a good guy and generous enough not to take the fare. But that was not the case with the hospital, they wanted me to pay upfront for which I declined. I explained them the things, but I should commend them that they gave the first aid and the condition of the chap was stabilised without taking money.

They looked at this guy's mobile and he had tried calling someone while he was in auto, but seems that didn't went through. The hospital guys tried calling that number again and the relatives came to the hospital. From the time they reached there, they were behaving as if I was the guy who was the culprit in this accident. My troubles doubled as I don't know Kannada and also I was an "IT guy", (they had some politician relative or kind of that) even the cops were of that helpful. I was something like under "hospital arrest". They wanted me to pay the bills of the hospital and they wanted him to continue at Manipal itself. By morning I called my colleagues who were localites and one of them knew a higher ranking Police officer who came to the hospital (he was staying very near by) and then the things turned to my favour. We all went to the accident scene by about 7:00 Am and from the sight of the bike it was very clear my bike was not involved in the accident. We returned to the hospital and by this time the blood test report came which clearly showed he was drunk over the limits.

I was totally upset, I missed a lot of work which I was supposed to deliver that day and had to explain to all my managers about this case. At the end, by afternoon when everyone "set me free" to go, I took a vow infront of everyone that I would never ever help any accident victims. I just told this and turned and was coming down the staircase, but some one was shouting at my back. I just turned to see, I saw one lady (who was most vociferous) shouting something at me, just slipping and came down rolling the staircase. I could have stopped her, but instinctively I jumped and "allowed" her to "complete" her fall. I know I was cruel then, but my instincts at that moment made me not to stop her. I came down and just looked at her, I am sure she had a fractured hand, but I felt very happy at that time and told the others in that group "just remember there is God and I believe in him".

I just wanted to narrate my experience when I tried being a good Samaritan, but this has not stopped me helping others involved in accidents. This was (thankfully) the only time when I had to take someone to hospital, all others were small helps like getting some water, helping the victim get up and relax for sometime etc.

[ashphil]

Fine 69
You are indeed a "FINE" example for all team-bhpians to follow. What you did is to be commended. I wish there were more people like you on the roads today. As a community we salute you and wish that more people would follow your wonderful example.

Way back in the 1980's when the supreme court ruling on helping accident victims did not exist, I witnessed an accident on N.H Road where a youngster riding a Jawa motorcyle swerved onto the wrong side of the road and got hit by a car which did the disappearing act. With the help of an auto driver I managed to get the unconsious victim to a nearby government hospital (Kilpauk Medical) where he received treatment.
The auto driver insisted that I accompany him as otherwise the hospital authorities would blame him for being the cause of the accident. He promptly disappeared after delivering us at the hospital. I hung around while the doctors took care of the victim. Meanwhile the Police arrived at the hospital and they began to treat me as if I was the cause of the accident. I took them back to the accident spot and pointed out my vehicle to them . It was a brand new "LUNA TFR" with nary a scratch on it! The police sub Inspector just smiled at seeing so deadly a vehicle! Also, the shopkeepers whom I had asked to keep an eye on my vehicle while I accompanied the auto to the hospital narrated what happened and someone who had noted the number of the car passed on the information to the policemen. I was asked to write out a statement after which I was allowed to go on my way.
In a recent incident I was driving behind a scorpio which brushed against a Pulsar and knocked the rider down. Both the Scorpio and my Alto came to a stop and we ran up and picked up the fallen rider who though shaken and bleeding, blamed me for the debacle! The scorpio driver promptly corrected him. He then informed the police and asked me if I could drop him and the accident victim at a nearby hospital which I did.
Over the years I have always stopped to help. Being humane is never a waste of time. Remember that this could happen to you, your family members or your friends. (God forbid!) Drive safe! Ride safe ! And let all of us be safe!
Regards,
Ashok

[sachinj12]

@fine69, you owe an explanation to none. What you have done is commendable and I really appreciate you for taking your time off and helping the old man.


I am glad that you actually stopped by and helped. We need more such people to set an example. You can take comfort knowing that you have done your part and you have done it well. Kudos to you.