Kochi: Nineteen of the 42 on board the ill-fated Bengaluru-Ernakulam bus of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) were crushed to death early on Thursday as a container truck rammed it at Avinashi near Coimbatore.
The right side of the bus was ripped off as the truck that veered off from its path crashed into it. As expected there were more casualities from this side, and those on the left side survived and these included a 21-year-old woman, a BDS intern, who had switched her seat just hours before the crash.
“I was sitting right behind the driver’s seat. Then one of the drivers, Baiju, asked if I wanted a seat reserved for ladies. When I said yes, my seat was shifted to the centre-left, and hence I am alive today," Anne Mary, a native of Kolenchery in Kerala's Ernakulam district, recounted.
She is currently undergoing treatment at the MOSC Hospital at Kolenchery for a minor injury on her back. However, the horrors of the fateful night continue to haunt Anne.
"I boarded the bus from Peenya (near Bengaluru). I was awake till 2:30 am. I woke up when I heard a thud. What I saw next was a woman being thrown out through a glass window next to my seat. I don't know if that woman survived. I was rescued through this broken window," Anne said.
Anne was then helped by the passengers of a Bengaluru-Pathanmathitta bus that reached the spot soon after the accident.
She got into that bus along with another passenger. The passengers of the second bus could rescue only two people as the rest were grievously injured.
Holiday trip
Anne is a BDS (Bachelor of Dental Surgery) intern at the Sri Siddhartha Dental College at Tumakuru in Karnataka. She was returning home for the Shivarathri holiday.
As soon as she boarded the Pathanamthitta-bound bus, Anne telephoned her father at 3:50am, and asked him to come and pick her up at Angamaly.
Her father Varghese said that he did not take the accident news seriously then. It was only in the morning that he realised its magnitude.
"Last month also her bus had met with an accident around the same spot. Therefore, I did not take this news seriously. When I saw her in the morning, she was in a miserable state. She was taken to the hospital and it was found that she sustained a minor injury to the spine. But thankfully there are no other serious injuries," Varghese said.
