‘We jumped out to save our lives’

Pushpa Narayan & V Ayyappan TNN

April 30, 2009

Chennai: What do you do when you see death approaching at the speed of 96 kmph and you have only a couple of seconds to decide how to escape it — if at all you can? If you are a train driver, the only thing you can do is jump out, which is what Arumugam and two others did on Wednesday morning. The three — Arumugam, the driver of the goods train, Pradeep, the assistant driver, and Christopher, the guard — jumped out seconds before their train was hit by the EMU. “I could have been dead,” said Arumugam from the ward of Voluntary Health Services, where he was shifted after first aid at the Railway Hospital. The doctor attending on him says he is stable and has a fracture on his left shoulder. “We might even discharge him tomorrow,” said the doctor. Arumugam still can’t believe that it happened. “It all happened in a few seconds. I was at the Vyasarpadi Jiva Station waiting for the signal. Suddenly, my assistant and I saw this train on the same track. It was coming at a great speed. It had no headlights and we knew something was amiss. Since the track was a bit curved, I could not see if there was any driver inside. It would have been very difficult for me to identify him even if I had seen him. We all jumped out to save our lives,” he said. And just as they jumped they saw the trains clash. “I saw the fire ballooning out. The train I was driving no longer looked like a train.” Pradeep, the assistant driver, is still in a state of shock. But he tries to recall: “The signal turned red and we started to slow down before the point from where we were to branch off to Tondiarpet. But we were shocked to see a train heading towards us.” While Arumugam and Christopher were taken to the hospital, Pradeep, who had no injuries, stayed on the platform for a long time, unable to get over the fact that he had just escaped death.