KANHANGAD: Drafted in a blood-stained white dhoti, a stunned Narayana Naik sat alone on a hospital bed, hesitant to even shed a tear. Occasionally, he would shake his head in disbelief. Naik’s 13-year-old son Shreyas was among the seven persons killed in the bus accident at which took place at Pariyaram, 2km from Panathur in Panathady panchayat, on Sunday.
Naik was taken to the District Hospital in Kanhangad along with the body of his son, who died on the spot. But there, they were separated. Naik was admitted to the Emergency Ward, while Shreyas was taken to the morgue.
The district administration, which found Naik’s Tulu language too high a barrier to cross, was unable to even provide him with a counsellor in his moment of tremendous grief. “That’s the reason we are shifting patients to Wenlock District Hospital in Mangaluru, where the Dakshina Kannada administration has made arrangements to receive them,” said Kasaragod collector D Sajith Babu. Around 4.30pm, the Kasaragod district administration ran a Kerala State Road Transport Corporation bus to take all the injured, including Naik, to Mangaluru.
Naik said his son Shreyas and a few other children were sitting in the front on the long seat opposite the driver. He was sitting in the middle. When the bus crashed into the house, two women in front of him ended up under the seat. “Their necks were jammed under a rod,” he said. He pulled the seat and rescued the women. When he rushed to the front of the bus, he found Shreyas dead.