"Screamed In Pain": Maharashtra Woman Dies In Ambulance Stuck In NH 48 Jam

A massive traffic jam on a national highway claimed the life of a 49-year-old woman who was being rushed to a Mumbai hospital after a critical injury. The death of Chhaya Purav from Maharashtra's Palghar district has simultaneously spotlighted inadequate health infrastructure in Palghar and the traffic terror on NH-48, which connects the district to the Maximum City.

On July 31, Ms Purav was critically injured when a tree branch fell on her near their home in Palghar's Madhukar Nagar. She suffered injuries to her ribs, shoulders, and head.

Palghar does not have a trauma centre, so a local hospital referred her to Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai. The 100-km journey usually takes around 2.5 hours. Accordingly, Ms Purav was administered anaesthesia and the journey began around 3 pm, with her husband seated next to her in the ambulance. The ambulance then got stuck in a massive traffic jam on NH-48.

Around 6, more than three hours after they started, the ambulance had covered only half the distance. The anaesthesia's effect started waning, and Ms Purav was in excruciating pain. As her condition worsened, the ambulance drove into Orbit Hospital on Mira Road, about 30 km away from Hinduja Hospital, around 7 pm so that she could get immediate attention. But it was too late. Doctors examined Ms Purav and declared her dead. Her husband, Kaushik, was told that she could have been saved if they had reached the hospital just 30 minutes earlier. "I saw her suffering in unbearable pain for four hours," he said.

Speaking to NDTV, the shocked husband said they tried their best to save Ms Purav, but the traffic jam foiled all their attempts. "The road was full of potholes and that put her in so much pain. She was screaming in pain and crying. She begged to take her to a hospital at the earliest. But we were stuck, vehicles were driven from the wrong side, making the traffic jam worse," he said.