Help On The Horror Highways

It all began four years ago, when Subroto and Sushmita Das met with an accident on the Baroda highway near Vasad. It was night. They had a cell phone but it had fallen into water. So all they could do was wave for help—throughout the night. "But every vehicle we tried to stop just sped past, ignoring us," recalls Subroto. Finally, at dawn, a kindly milkman on a motorbike stopped. He wheeled his vehicle to the middle of the highway to halt traffic and arranged for transport to take them to a hospital.

After recovering from their injuries, the couple resolved to put in place a system for accident victims so that nobody had to go through the same ordeal. Indeed, out of 1,872 deaths on NH-8 which runs through Gujarat, only 200 were on-the-spot. The rest were due to lack of timely help.

Subroto and Sushmita’s initiative led to the beginnings of the Highway Rescue Project (HRP) under the banner of what has now become the Lifeline Foundation. As many as 318 persons with minor injuries and 200 with grievous wounds were saved within 10 months of the project’s launch on July 1 last year. "From our research, we realised more than 80 per cent of highway fatalities could be avoided if medical help reaches the victim within the first hour of the accident," says Subroto, who runs a consultancy in hospital marketing.

Now, thanks to HRP, help’s at hand. In case of an accident on the NH8 between edabad and Vapi, dial 98250-26000. Phone in your location, giving any milestone nearby—tea-stall, temple, std booth. Within minutes, ambulances and metal-cutters will arrive. The police will also be informed. You can also report if someone else is in trouble. The HRP operators won’t ask for your identity.

Setting up such a system required intensive groundwork. Recalls Sushmita: "Every morning, Subroto and I would drive out on the highway. We mapped each milestone on the 263-km stretch of highway between Ahmedabad and Surat and then the 100 km from Surat to Vapi. We have on record each and every landmark on the 363-km stretch, restaurants, petrol pumps, eating stalls, temples, everything."

They also fed into their computer data on the ambulances, cranes, metal-cutters, hospitals and police posts and stations nearest to all these landmarks. They networked as many as 87 ambulances on the highway, besides fire brigade stations close to the highway. The project was given the all important push by the National Highway Authority of India. Corporates and psus, too, came forward to help. As many as 600 hoardings bearing the helpline number were put up at vantage points every five kilometres.

At present, they are in the process of consolidating the project. Says Subroto, "We organised a three-month attitude training of ambulance drivers we have networked and are now teaching them about first aid. We have started similar training programmes in 100 villages with the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme. " Plans are afoot to extend the project up to Himmatnagar in the north and Rajkot in western Gujarat. Subroto and Sushmita Das can be contacted at: Lifeline Foundation, 18-C, Ratnadeep Park, Near Gotri Water Tank, Gotri, Baroda-390021. Telefax: (0265) 2372566. email: lifeline@lifelinefoundationindia.com.