Chennai: Boy hurt after fall from moving van

Chennai: A 10-year-old school boy fell off a moving van on Rajaji Salai near the War Memorial here on Friday after the van’s door, which lacked a proper locking system, opened while in motion.

Luckily, N. Sharan, escaped with injuries. The van’s door had been tied to an iron rod with a nylon rope. The boy was standing near the door when he fell down. The vehicle was ferrying students of St.Bede’s Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School on Santhome High Road. Around noon, the van, with more than 10 students, was moving along Rajaji salai when the accident occurred.

Sharan,  a class V student, lives with his mother Manjula Elavazagan at corporation colony at Royapuram. Elephant Gate traffic investigation wing personnel seized the van. “The driver abandoned the vehicle and fled the scene after the accident. It seems he admitted the boy at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital and fled,” sub-inspector N.Mohideen told DC.

Manjula, who works as a staff nurse at the Government Stanley Hospital, was informed by the van owner about the accident. He was shifted to a private hospital at Tondiarpet where he is kept under observation.

The boy never spoke about the accident until he was shifted to the private hospital in the evening. “He still seems to be in a state of shock. He kept on asking me what happened to him and why he is in a hospital,” Manjula said.

She came to know from one of the students that Sharan was standing near the door. When the van hit a speed breaker, he held the latch on the door for support and it opened.

“Doctors said Sharan has suffered a minor fracture near his ear and there are lacerations all over the body,” Manjula said adding that a neurosurgeon would examine him. The police have launched a hunt for the van driver.