Godiyal Riya, the teenager who fell off a bike when it skidded off the muddy road near Anand Theatre at Begumpet on Tuesday, was alive for at least half-an-hour and battled for life under the wheels of an RTC bus. Eye-witnesses told Express that the 17-year-old lay there writhing in pain and crying for help. Riya, who was riding pillion on the bike, couldn’t be rescued as the bus came to a screeching halt on her body.
“The bus did not run over her. The driver applied brakes just as she came under the wheels and she was stuck till an ambulance arrived,” recalled Alex Thomas (49), who works at a courier service nearby. He said Riya was conscious and even spoke clearly. “But nothing could be done because of the way her body was stuck under the bus. She cried out for help repeatedly, and was asking us to pull her out. She thought she was simply stuck under the bus, but what she didn’t know was that the bus had literally dismembered half her stomach. It was a gruesome sight,” said N Naveen, who works at the Cell World just opposite the place where the girl fell. Riya had died midway to the hospital. Naveen said seven motorists had slipped on the same spot on Tuesday. Riya was the eighth person and the most unlucky.
“That part of the road where she fell is very slippery due to the mud. Vehicles slow down just ahead. Once they pass that slushy patch, the vehicles speed up near the part where it is slippery, which is why they fall,” Naveen explained.
Ramesh, who works at a Hyundai showroom nearby, blamed civic authorities for the accidents, and said it was regrettable that even a death wasn’t enough to galvanize them. According to him, even on Wednesday, two accidents occurred on the same spot where Riya fell, and in the same way. “Some workers came in the morning, poured sand on the spot and left. Once it rains, the road will become slippery again,” he said.
When contacted, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation engineer-in-chief R Dhan Singh said the road comes under the Roads and Buildings department. Officials from the Roads and Buildings department could not be reached for comment.
A team of workers carried out repair work at the spot where the accident occurred Tuesday. “There are some potholes which were filled with sand,” said Naveen, and others who work nearby.