The husband and wife were counting their last breaths on oxygen support… This brutality that happened in the ambulance will shake you

Horrible accident while going from Lucknow to Siddharthnagar

The incident is as follows. The victim Rachna (name changed) was going from Lucknow to Siddharthnagar with her sick husband. On the way, ambulance driver Suraj Tiwari and his companion started molesting Rachna. Rachna said, 'My husband became very sick after Rakshabandhan. He used to work in Mumbai. He had liver disease. He consulted doctors in Mumbai but even after blood transfusion his condition kept deteriorating. He returned to Siddharthnagar so that the family could take care of him.

Rachna said, 'The local hospital could not treat him. They referred us to the KGMU Trauma Centre in Lucknow. It is a big hospital, but there are a lot of patients here. They told us that they did not have any vacant beds, so they could not admit my husband.' She further said, 'I hired an ambulance which took us to a private hospital on Aravali Marg in Indiranagar on the night of August 27.' Here Rachna faced the problem that many Indian families face. The cost of treatment was so high that whatever little savings she had, was also exhausted.

A woman got trapped in the cunningness of the ambulance driver and…

Rachna said, 'My husband was admitted to the hospital for two nights and I was given a bill of Rs 2 lakh. I did not have that much money, so my family mortgaged the land of the house to pay for the treatment. But there was no improvement in his condition. He was no longer able to breathe without an oxygen mask. The cost of treatment was so high that I was forced to ask the doctor to discharge him. I called my brother who works in Ahmedabad for help. We decided to go back to Siddharthnagar. Someone gave us the number of an ambulance. When we talked, the driver (Suraj Tiwari) agreed to take us there.

She said, 'On August 29, at 6:30 pm, we left Indiranagar Hospital. By then, my brother had reached Lucknow. My brother and I were sitting on the seat next to my husband who was lying on the stretcher. My husband was wearing a face mask connected to an oxygen cylinder. We stopped at a petrol pump and then started on the highway towards Siddharthnagar. After reaching Ayodhya bypass, the driver requested me to sit in the front. He said that the police can stop the ambulance at night. If they see a woman sitting, they will not stop.' She said, 'I ignored him, but he kept insisting. After some time, I agreed. If this helps us save time on the road, then why not. But Suraj Tiwari was in no hurry. He stopped the ambulance near a dhaba in Ayodhya.'

The patient's condition kept deteriorating and the ambulance driver was busy eating and drinking

The ambulance driver and his companion wanted to eat. But they didn't just eat. They also drank alcohol, while a critical patient was still halfway to his destination. Rachana says, 'When Suraj Tiwari and his companion came back to the ambulance, they smelled of alcohol. This made me nervous. But they entered from both sides and I was stuck between them. Suraj Tiwari started the vehicle. We started on our way again. It was late and there was less traffic.'

The woman became emotional while describing the cruelty of the driver and conductor. She said, 'Both the men came close to me and I felt suffocated by the smell of alcohol coming from their mouth. And then I was stunned. Their hands were on my back. When I touched them, I pulled myself back and pushed them away, but they were very strong. When I resisted, they became more aggressive. I tried to free myself, but could not. I screamed, but my voice could not reach the driver's cabin due to the glass windows. Still my brother and husband realized that I was in trouble. My brother shouted for help and banged hard on the cabin wall to stop the driver.'

A woman was molested and then the limits of cruelty were crossed

Rachana says, 'But Suraj Tiwari kept driving like crazy. They did not leave me. I sat on the seat for more than an hour surrounded by the two men and resisted their attempts to touch me. Then when we reached near the colony, they both got very angry at me.' Suraj Tiwari stopped the ambulance on the main road near Pragati Nursery. The two men got down, opened the rear door and pulled off my husband's oxygen mask. My brother tried to stop them but they pushed him away. They pulled my husband off the stretcher and threw him on the road, then dragged my brother out, pushed him into the driver's cabin next to mine and locked it.

According to Rachna, the ambulance driver and his companion snatched Rs 10,000 from her purse, mangalsutra and anklets and pushed her and her brother out of the ambulance and fled. She says, 'My brother dialled 112 and 108. The police and ambulance reached the spot simultaneously. The police took our statement and advised us to get my husband admitted to the hospital and then come back to lodge an FIR. The 108 ambulance took us to the district hospital in Basti. My husband's condition deteriorated. The hospital people asked us to take him to Gorakhpur Medical College. But by the time we reached Gorakhpur, he had died.'

The patient could not be saved, the accused surrendered

The woman said she suffered severe injuries when she was thrown out of the ambulance and was forced to breathe without an oxygen mask. “Our world was destroyed in two days, but I wanted to file an FIR. My husband must get justice. The police in Basti heard us out but refused to register an FIR. They told us that since the ambulance had left Lucknow, we should file the case there,” she said.

Rachna says, 'My husband's funeral took place on September 1. We went to Lucknow to register an FIR on September 3, but this time we were told that the incident happened in Basti, so the FIR will also be registered there. A distant relative who has a government job contacted senior officials and on their instructions, the FIR was finally registered on September 4.' Meanwhile, the main accused Suraj Tiwari surrendered in the Lucknow District Court on the evening of September 12.