Bengaluru: Quick presence of mind and will to save a life spurred a 40-year-old Good Samaritan to rush a hit-and-run accident victim to the hospital in the city recently.
Mr T. Bali, a realtor and a resident of R.M.S. Colony, was on his way when he noticed commotion on the road near Madehalli and as he approached nearer, he saw a man hit by the bus losing a lot of blood. Mr Bali ran from one end of the road to the other asking for help, but no one came forward. He then forcibly flagged down a goods vehicle and rushed the injured man to a nearby hospital.
Later, the traffic police from K.R. Puram, who were informed about the accident, thanked Mr Bali for shifting the accident victim to the hospital within the golden hour.
Mr Bali told Deccan Chronicle, “I was passing through Madehalli around 7 pm when I noticed a big crowd. When I approached them, I saw a man in his early forties lying in a pool of blood with severe injuries, including a critical one in the head. He had been hit by a private bus and the bus driver had fled.”
He said, “I tried to stop several vehicles to shift him to a hospital. They all stopped only to look at the accident spot and then speed away. When no one helped even after 20 minutes, I flagged down a goods autorickshaw and asked the driver to take the accident victim to a nearby hospital. I went with the victim and got him admitted to Sathya Sai Hospital.”
As he had suffered a head injury, the victim was shifted to Nimhans and was discharged after a week.
A senior traffic officer said, “We have been telling people not to be scared and to shift the injured to hospitals to save precious lives. They all should learn from Bali.”
On October 1, Karnataka became the first state in the country to move the Good Samaritan law, which will give legal protection to those who help accident victims with President Ram Nath Kovind giving his assent to the bill.
