April 5, 2007, Kanpur: It was a big day for Shivam Bajpai as he had turned 16. As the chirpy lad was walking back from his school around 3.30 pm, a vehicle hit him and sped away. Seconds later, as he lay on the road bleeding, another car ran over him. He crawled to the side of the road asking for help, but to no avail. People stopped to stare, but nobody came forward to help or call the police. Forty-five minutes later, Shivam died.
May 2, 2013, Amritsar: Karan Arora, a 24-year-old who was studying economics in the US, had come down to India for his summer vacation. Along with three friends, Karan set out on a road trip. On the outskirts of Amritsar, he spotted a crowd gathered on the highway, where a mangled car and a bleeding man were lying next to each other. When Karan and his friends decided to take the victim to the hospital, the crowd warned them against it. “Don’t do it, it’s an accident case,” one of them said.
Karan soon found out why, as the emergency room refused to take the “police case” in. While Karan called the police, his friends persuaded the doctor to administer the victim first aid. Almost 20 minutes later, the doctor agreed.
The police arrived another 15 minutes later and started to grill the youths. It went on for 90 minutes till the four called their parents to vouch for their identity. “The victim survived, but the cops and the hospital staff made us feel as if we were criminals. I am not sure if I would ever want to do this again,” Karan says.
His story perhaps reflects the dilemma every aam aadmi faces while helping an accident victim: Dodge police harassment or save a life. Piyush Tewari chose the latter. Not just because he was Shivam’s cousin, but because he wanted to build a social ethos that wouldn’t make humane actions a liability.
The problem
India records one of the highest number of road accidents in the world. In 2011, there was one accident every minute and one life lost every 3.7 minutes. Statistics released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in 2011 say there were 4,97,000 road accidents that left 1,45,485 people dead.
Equally appalling is the chain of events after an accident. Every bystander wants to take a peek, but nobody wants to help even though at least 50 percent of the lives can be saved if the victim is administered basic care within the golden hour (60 minutes after an accident). That’s about 70,000 lives saved every year.
In their book, Indianomix: Making sense of Modern India, Vivek Dehejia and Rupa Subramanya argue that the reasons for our apathy to human suffering are many. We are selfish and busy but, more importantly, we are afraid of a potential liability or harassment by the police. “Human beings are driven by both egoistic and altruistic motives. When you are in a situation where you can help, you might consciously believe that you are saving someone’s life but, on the other side, there is the danger that you might be harassed or even accused in the case,” says Dehejia, an economics professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
To assume, though, that Indians are more apathetic than Europeans or Americans would be wrong. The Western world has better legislation in the form of Good Samaritan laws, which indemnify those who choose to voluntarily help a person in imminent danger. “What we have in India are vague directions from the Supreme Court. No one in India wants to deal with cops,” says Dehejia. Here, helping an accident victim is asking for trouble.
Tewari himself will not step back even if the future is uncertain. SaveLife is a non-profit and depends mostly on grants and donations. “But we are trying to drastically reduce our reliance on such sources of funding,” he says. The organisation is trying to open up channels of revenue by training people in life-saving techniques in return for a small fee. “Moreover, it’s a time-bound organisation. I hope that my mission will be achieved in five to seven years, after which we won’t need SaveLife anymore,” he says. Tewari also feels his trauma care models are replicable and people can pick them up to learn and implement life-saving strategies in future. For him, his organisation is just the means to an end.
(This story appears in the 09 August, 2013 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
VERY nice I lost my husband due to gredyness of doctor .Improper treatment after accident.Wish to join U. I am from delhi. Action for errored doctors and hospital .contact me please.
on Aug 16, 2014I intend to work on MACT claims for dependents of accident victims sincerely on a virtual basis that is all encompassing - in so far as claims are concerned. I have no intentions to make money. My kids are well settled. Have started outlining the architecture. I need to be in touch with Shri Tewari. Glad if I could get email ID My email: shankariyer1955@gmail.com
on Jun 22, 2014One of the greatest initiative to save lives.
on Aug 6, 2013