‘Made multiple trips to the hospital, ferrying injured, through the night’: Ambulance drivers recount scenes outside New Delhi station

Kumar said after ferrying the injured girl to the hospital, they returned to the railway station. “When we rushed back, we saw a man complaining of severe pain in his arm. He had a fracture. I sprayed some pain relief spray and gave him first aid on the spot,” he said.

“We made multiple trips to the hospital, ferrying injured, all through the night. We were there till 5 am.”

Kumar said that the coolies (porters) at the railway station “did a great job helping bring bodies and injured people out from the railway platforms to the ambulances”. “They didn’t know any of those people. They carried injured people on their shoulders,” he said.

However, he said he was hurt because many people there were busy recording videos and not helping the injured.

Kumar, a resident of Trilokpuri, has been an EMT staff on an ambulance for the last six years. His wife also works as a nursing staff at a hospital in Faridabad.

The other ambulance, Call Sign Alpha 22, too arrived subsequently. “We were stationed at Delhi gate when we received a call at 9.36 pm..,” Irfan Ali, 32, the driver of the ambulance, said. He said what he saw at New Delhi Railway station made him recall the 2020 Northeast Delhi riots.

“We played our siren and drove fast, cutting through the traffic and managed to reach the railway station. A woman was carrying a child. She said the child needs immediate help. At that time, we didn’t know how bad it was inside the railway station… we rushed straight to the platform with the scoop stretcher.”

“There were so many people there… there was no space to even walk… only the people in uniform and porters were helping the injured…,” he said.

He said it was only when he reached the platform that he realised it was not a train accident but a stampede. “I rushed three women and a teenage boy to the hospital,” he said.

Ali said that “the dead and the injured were being brought covered in bedsheets”. “I informed the control room that the situation is bad and more hands are needed on the ground,” he recalled.

Ali said he even lost his stretcher for some time in the chaos. “I couldn’t find my stretcher… someone told me it was on the bridge. Even when we were ferrying people and taking them to the hospital, the only thing we were asking the doctors and staff there was to give our stretcher back as soon as possible,” he said. “We wanted to go back to the railway station to help more people.”

Another ambulance driver, Preetam Kumar, who hails from Bihar, and resides in Delhi’s Harsh Vihar, said he was also there till early morning. “There was a long queue of ambulances parked outside the railway station. I did not get a chance to take any patient to the hospital,” he said. “But I didn’t sit idle, I gave first aid to several injured.”

He said that his parents too had taken a train to Kumbh last week. “I kept thinking what if they too were at the station,” he said. “It was painful…”

He said that even after the stampede was over, he went to check for any more casualties or injured people. “It was surprising to see people in a hurry to board their train, carrying their young children. They don’t learn any lessons…”