Senior citizen who was in near-fatal accident under Versova Metro station in April, has been desperately trying to get BMC to repair it
Seven months after meeting with a near fatal accident under the Versova Metro Station bridge, which left him with partial blindness in the right eye and a major muscle tear in the knee, Prakash Gidwani, 64, a legal advisor, has been fighting a lonely battle to get the hell hole responsible for the mishap repaired by the authorities.
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The accident spot under Versova Metro station
Recalling the night of April 10, Gidwani, who is also a social activist known to offer funeral rites to unclaimed bodies found across the city, said he was returning from a social function when the front tyre of his bike got stuck in the large crater on the concrete road and he crashed headlong into the metro bridge pillar.
The front mirror crashed into my eye, damaging the lens and my retina. The heavy bike had pinned me down under its weight and I could do nothing to prevent the hot silencer from burning into my flesh. They were one of my most agonising 25 minutes of my life. Being a badly illuminated area, there was also the danger of another vehicle running me over," said Gidwani.
Once he recovered from the ordeal, Gidwani began his campaign to get the crater repaired. But, repeated complaints to the local ward office have yielded nothing so far. "Apart from the physical and mental agony, I have already spent almost R2 lakh on medical treatment, in addition to the R3 lakh lost after missing out on a lucrative assignment. Adding insult to injury is the fact that the accident spot has still not been repaired, which could result in someone's death," he said.
Dr Ganesh Yeotiwad, head of Orthopaedics Department, Cooper Hospital, who was first to treat Gidwani's, said he had come to him in great pain and could barely walk without support. "He was diagnosed with a torn ligament, which needed urgent medical attention and a subsequent course of physiotherapy," Yeotiwad said.
Assistant Commissioner Prashat Gaikwad from K West Ward, when contacted, said as the accident spot is a rupture in the concrete slab of the road, he would have his engineers from the department concerned inspect the site and have it repaired at the earliest.
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