Bureaucrat S Ghadge was on his way to Mantralaya when his car rammed into a 19-year-old crossing the road in Thane; he also footed her medical bills.
Tuesday saw the stereotype of sloth-paced babus being recast, with a senior bureaucrat showing remarkable agility in rushing a teenager to hospital after his sedan hit her in Thane. Without wasting a second, and despite a resulting pile-up of three cars including his, he drove the bleeding girl to the nearest hospital. When the officer found out that the machines at the facility were inoperative, he took her to another hospital, and also picked up her medical tab.
S Ghadge, officer on special duty (OSD) to the chief minister, had started from his Thane home to go to Mantralaya when his Swift Dzire rammed into the 19-year-old trying to cross the road near Viviana Mall in Ghodbunder Road area.
The victim, B Com fresher Kavita Kokare, had jumped over the divider and was wading through heavy traffic when she got hit sideways by Ghadge’s car, injuring the right side of her head and shoulders.
As the driver braked, the car screeched to a sudden stop, leading two vehicles trailing the Dzire to dash into it. Unfazed, Ghadge got out, picked up the girl who lay bleeding on the road, and drove her to Thane Civil Hospital in his car. He also sought help from Thane Municipal Corporation’s chief medical officer Dr RT Kendre, who wasted no time in arriving at the hospital.
Doctors at the facility asked for Kokare’s CT and MRI scans, but since both the machines were out of order at the moment, Ghadge drove her to Kalwa hospital, where she was admitted to the intensive care unit.
Kokare’s mother Parvathy said, “My girl was injured seriously. Anything could have happened to her. But I am thankful to the officer (Ghadge) who stood by us till the end. He not only paid our bills but also shifted her to a better hospital.”
Dr Kendre, meanwhile, pulled up the hospital staff over breakdown of the machines and asked them to send him a detailed report on the matter. “We have sent requests for fresh equipment and they have been sanctioned. There is a new multispeciality hospital coming up in place of the civil hospital, so all these issues will be sorted out soon,” he said.
While Ghadge could not be contacted for comment, Dr Kendre told Mirror the teenager was out of danger and had been discharged from hospital.