On way home to share transfer news, doc dies in accident

LUCKNOW: A government doctor died when his car crashed into a trailer that had broken down in the middle of Sitapur Road amid foggy conditions on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday. While police claimed the emergency lights of the trailer were on, no warning signals, reflectors or signages had been kept to alert commuters on the busy highway which connects the city with Delhi via Bareilly.
A resident of Indralok colony in Krishnanagar, the victim Swadesh Gautam, 32, is survived by his wife and two young children. Gautam had recently been transferred to Sitapur chief medical officer’s office from Pisawan community health centre. Elated with the transfer order which was expected to give more exposure to the budding doctor, Gautam went to the CMO’s office late on Friday. Having taken over the new assignment, Gautam was eager to share the news with family members and headed home in his Maruti Swift. At the toll naka in Itaunja area, a car carrier trailer had broken down and was stalled on the road. Officer-in-charge of Itaunja police station Subhash Singh said that the front axle of the heavy commercial vehicle had conked. “The towing crane available was incapable of handling the load of the trailer,” added Singh, highlighting the lack of emergency resources plaguing the state’s highways.
Police maintained that the truck driver had left the blinkers on and had gone to find a mechanic when the incident occurred. Meanwhile, owing to poor visibility, Gautam could not spot the stranded truck on time and collided with it at high speed around 1am. The impact smashed the front portion of the car badly and the broken steering wheel impaled the doctor’s chest.
Gautam succumbed to the injuries in a few hours, added Singh. After the postmortem examination got over, the deceased’s family took the body and were waiting for their relatives to arrive from Ambedkarnagar, their native district. Till late Saturday, no case was registered. The doctor’s daughter is about to turn a year old while his son is five.