Fire & cold: Karnataka crash survivors recall ordeal as ambulances arrive late; 6 dead, 28 injured | Bengaluru News

CHITRADURGA/BENGALURU: The passengers who escaped the bus fire after a collision with a truck near Hiriyur, Karnataka, in the early hours of Thursday said surviving the flames was only the first battle; the second was the long wait in the bitter night cold for medical help.While three passengers in the sleeper coach survived serious wounds including burns, 25 others suffered minor injuries. Most passengers were asleep when the crash jolted them awake. Thick smoke quickly filled the bus, leaving many gasping for breath. With no time to think, several passengers kicked open windows and jumped out of the burning vehicle, sustaining injuries as flames engulfed the bus behind them.

Hemaraj, who was travelling with his wife Kalpana and eight-year-old son to Gokarna, said: “We were in deep sleep. I suddenly felt something falling on my head from above. When I looked around, everything was dark and filled with smoke. I realised a fire had broken out, and I immediately pushed my son out through the window. Then my wife jumped. I looked towards the back of the bus and heard people crying for help and shouting in panic. By then, the fire had reached us. I had no choice but to jump out through the window,” he said.For many passengers who escaped, panic soon turned into anger. “We were alive, but in pain. We were shivering in the cold, injured, with the bus still burning in front of us. There was no ambulance,” Varun, a techie travelling on the bus, told TOI.According to the survivors, despite repeated calls to emergency numbers, the first ambulance reached the spot nearly an hour and half later. Two more ambulances arrived only between 3.40am and 4am. “The passengers were crying for help. We had burns and fractures, standing in the cold, waiting. There was no quick response at all,” another survivor said. Manjunath M, who suffered nearly 70% burns, faced a harrowing time while waiting to be shifted to the hospital.Several passengers pointed out that firefighters reached the site within 20 minutes, but medical help lagged far behind. As the survivors waited in pain, it was locals who became first responders. Ritish Kumar, a private firm driver who rushed to the spot after learning of the crash, said he called his friends from Gayatri Jalashaya Sangha to help.“Firefighters came quickly, and along with locals, we tried to pull people out… We helped them escape,” he said. With ambulances still missing, locals eventually helped shift the injured to Hiriyur and Shira govt hospitals once vehicles arrived.Heavy traffic blamed for delayThe drivers of the ambulances which reached the accident spot maintained that they got delayed because of a massive traffic jam on the highway. “With vehicle movements coming to a standstill on the highway after the crash, we took a long time to reach the spot. The traffic extended up to around 3 km,” one of the ambulance drivers said.