Chennai: As a family of four were alighting from the Mannai Express at Mambalam station early morning Tuesday the wife and the younger child of K. Singaravadivel fell down on to the tracks. While the toddler died on the spot, the woman was grievously injured.
Singaravadivel, an assistant professor of architecture at Meenakshi college, and his family was travelling from Thanjavur to Chennai by train No. 16180 when tragedy struck as the train arrived in Mambalam at about 5.25 am.
His wife was alighting from the train carrying their younger daughter, Ekashree, when the train had slowed down. As the mother slipped and fell, the girl who was a year and a half old succumbed on the spot while S Lakshmi (32), suffered terrible injuries on her feet.
Lakshmi’s feet, according to sources in the emergency ward for ladies at Stanley Hospital, were totally crushed and she had been crying in terrible pain after being admitted to the ward.
Breaking down each time a relative visited, she was being injected with painkillers to keep the pain at bay. “If the risk is high and damage beyond repair, her legs would have to be amputated below the knee,” a doctor at Stanley said. “As of now, the crush injuries need plastic surgery and skin cover.
Unless the bones heal, we won’t be able to say anything about amputation,” said the orthopaedist at Stanley Hospital, adding that she would und-ergo plastic surgery on Tuesday night. Singaravadivel told Deccan Chronicle that the gap between the stairs and platform was so wide that his wife, who was carrying his younger daughter, both fell down through it on to the track.
However, the railway police had cited a different version. “They alighted on the wrong side of the platform. The woman was unaware that the train stops at the station for a minute or two,” said a police official from Egmore GRP, which is handling the case. Others close to the family added that such things
should be taken care of by Railways so that such tragedies don’t befall other passengers.
