Hyderabad: Some families lost more than one child in Thursday’s accident. A family lost three children, while two brother-sister pairs died. The grief-stricken father of Razia Gousya and Waheed, who lost their lives in the accident, suffered a heart attack and was shifted to a local hospital. Four-year-old Razia and six-year-old Waheed had said goodbye to their father, Mohammed Waliuddin, in the morning at Islampur village and within a few hours, he received news of their death. An inconsolable Mr Waliuddin suffered a heart attack.
Apart from Razia and Waheed, another pair of siblings — Suman and Srividya — lost their lives. Yadagiri, of Gundreddypally, lost all his three children —Trisha, Charan and Divya. “We didn’t admit them in the government school because we thought they would learn better in an English-medium school. This is what it has led to,” a relative of Mr Yadagiri said.
Within the first hour after the injured children were brought in at the hospital, 16 CT scans were done to identify the wounds and start emergency treatment. Dr R. Chandrashekar, chief operating officer, said, “Head injuries and multiple fractures were due to the impact. Our first duty was to stabilise them and within a few hours we will take some of them for surgery.”
Code Red was declared at Yashoda Hospital and doctors, para-medical and the administration were put on high alert. Once the children were stable, doctors took their pictures and showed the parents to identify them. Nine-year-old Nabira Fatima was thrown out of the bus and suffered lacerations on her lower lip, chin, and suffered severe injuries on her limbs. Her mother, Rafiya Fatima, said, “My daughter was born in this hospital eight years ago. Then too, it was an emergency case. She survived then, and I want her to survive now.”
Meanwhile two cousins — Nitusha, 7, and 11-year-old Vaishnavi — are in critical condition. Nitusha’s father, Shekar Reddy, said, “This is the only private school in the adjoining seven villages and we were happy to send our children there. But fate has been cruel.”
Similar is the case with cousins Varun, Ruchita and Sruthi who were in the bus. Their cousin, Mr Raju, was seen showing their pictures on his mobile phone to doctors to identify them. While Varun and Ruchita are critical, the state of Sruthi is not known. K. Srinivas, a witness, said, “I was working in the fields when I heard a huge collision and rushed there. The sight of the bus being dragged by the train made me scream out and others came running.”
