The scenes of the horrific triple train tragedy that took place at Bahanaga in Balasore district on June 2 are still haunting those who witnessed the tragedy and those who are lucky enough to survive the mishap.
Soubhagya Ranjan Sarangi, who runs a medicine store at Bahanaga Bazaar, is one of them. He says he can never forget what he saw on black Friday.
“On that fateful day, I was in his shop. It was around 7 pm. There were normal activities in the market. All of a sudden, a deafening sound was heard. It came from the station side. At first, we couldn’t figure out what it was. Then people started running towards the station. I too pulled down the shutter and rushed towards the station,” recounted Soubhagya.
“As I was running to the spot I saw a coach was rolling to a side. I understood what had happened. As I was nearing the spot, I came across around 200 people running towards the market. I could see they were bleeding. Without losing any moment I opened my shop. I had six vials of injunctions that check the flow of blood. I ordered two boxes of that injection and TT. Then I started administering injections to them. It continued till 5 am. I treated something around 800 to 1000 people,” he narrated.
“Initially I got nervous seeing the injured people. But the next moment I gathered courage and told myself that I had to treat them. Most of the people had suffered head injuries. A man with severe head injuries came running to my shop screaming ‘save me...save me’ and collapsed on my shop verandah and died in front of my eyes. I can’t forget this. The scenes are reappearing in my mind even in the dead of night,” he said.
“Some of my friends joined in the rescue operation. For some hours, they continued to bring bodies out from the mangled coaches of the train. While narrating the scenes I am getting Goosebumps even now,” he added.