Over 280 people were killed and more than 1000 injured after the three-way Balasore train crash. The devastating incident took place last week on Friday in Odisha, sending shockwaves across the country. The incident is also raising several eyebrows regarding the safety issues in the Indian railway system that transports more than 13 million passengers every day, reports CNN.
One of the passengers on the Coromandel Express who was presumed to be dead after the accident was a 24-year-old man named Biswajit Malik. His father, Helaram Malik, just wouldn’t accept the news of his death and believed that his son was alive. He was a relentless father who treaded here and there searching for his son.
According to TOI, Helaram is a shopkeeper from Howrah, Kolkata. He got news of the accident hours after he dropped his son at the Shalimar station. He then called Biswajit on his phone, who responded and said that he was alive but badly injured.
Helaram immediately called an ambulance and along with his brother-in-law left for Balasore. They travelled for over 230 km, visiting several hospitals nearby the accident spot but couldn’t find Biswajit. However, they never gave up.
Upon asking one person after the other on their way, they got a lead on a school which had been turned into a makeshift ward. Bodies of the victims from the accident were temporarily stored there. Helaram rushed to the school but was denied entry.
But while they were there, a commotion broke out in the school and they came to know that the right hand of one of the presumed dead bodies was shivering. Turns out, it was Biswajit! Helaram instantly got him and drove him to the nearby Balasore hospital, where he was given certain injections. But throughout the entire journey, Biswajit remained unconscious.
He was then taken to SSKM Hospital in Kolkata where he underwent ankle surgery and a few other surgeries have been planned for him.
A forensic expert named Somnath Das revealed that Biswajit’s condition, where he stopped responding and was thought to be dead, is called “suspended animation” – a temporary slowing down of one’s biological functions due to trauma-inducing accidents.
“Due to the overwhelming number of injured and the kind of rush, even medical practitioners might not get time to keenly look into vitals, especially in bodies that look listless,” Das explained.
This is an exceptional story of a father’s belief!