City's indifference killed accident victim | There's hope

NO HELP: An accident victim bled to death, lying on a busy intersection for over an hour.

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New Delhi: With an overwhelming precentage of the total road fatalities occurring in Indian metros, a few of those lives could be saved only if one of us had bothered to stop and help.

Such a case recently occurred in the national Capital — an accident victim bled to death, lying on a busy intersection for over an hour. Help did come, but too late. Such an incident is clearly symptomatic of our apathy

A 51-year-old professor of management, Shams, bled to death after a bike accident near Ashram Chowk early this week.

Shams' wife, Tahira blames the compassionless city that left him to die. She says, “If someone had helped, then he would have been here with us today.”

There was no help for Shams who lay on the road for an hour, not even from the police who were just around the corner. The only man who stopped his vehicle was neuro-anaesthetist at AIIMS, Dr Anil Sharma, who was abused for his efforts.

“People started shouting at me, saying I’ll cause a traffic jam, but I didn’t care. I checked for his vitals and then made arrangements to take him quickly to the hospital. But what really hurts me is that why were there no CATS, no police? Are they all parked at Parliament?” Dr Sharma demanded.

Shams Tabrez lost his life to indifference.

For every person who drives past these accidents, however, there are those like Noida-based Xgen, who rush to accident sites to help casualties.

Xgen Founder Hardeep Bhati says, “When we get a call, we take the victim to nearest hospital and inform the victim’s family.”

But the group of seven, armed with two ambulances, say that caring comes with a cost - suspicious police and reluctant hospitals act as deterrents to their helping hands.

India urgently needs to develop a ‘Good Samaritan Law’, so that bystanders can intervene and assist without fear of litigation or police harassment.

More than laws, what really needs to change is the people's attitude and that can only come from within.

However, there is hope. Read on to know more about CNN-IBN's experiment on our metros' roads