Teen’s day-out ends in his death

Teen’s day-out ends in his death

A merry day-out with friends turned out to be a nightmare for a group of teenaged collegians, who lost their friend to a freak train accident on the Western Railway (WR) line on Saturday evening. Priyank Chudasama (17), who accidentally slipped and fell out of the Borivli-bound train, was brought dead to state-run Gokuldas Tejpal Hospital at CST by his eight friends. Priyank, who studied in SYJC at Thakur College in Kandivli, along with his neighbourhood buddies took to the Marine Drive after his lectures to enjoy the revelry of city’s rains. “As we were returning back home, we got into the train at Marine Lines station. While everybody settled in, Priyank was hanging out of the door, tightly clutching on to the door handle. The next thing we know is that he was not standing at the door any more. Later, we found that he had fallen between Marine Lines and Charni Road,” said Manan Shah, Priyank’s childhood friend. “Priyank fell and hit his head on the iron railings between the two stations. Even as he was being taken to the casualty, his brain was oozing out of the forehead region,” said an on-duty constable at GT Hospital. This, while the hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Jitendra Sankpal said, “Priyank was brought dead with head injuries and heavy internal bleeding. He had multiple fractures on his limbs and skull.” According to RTI reports, the past 10 years have seen over 36,152 people dying on the suburban railways due to avoidable reasons like crossing tracks, falling off trains while hanging or due to overcrowding, getting hit by poles or stone-pelting incidents. So taken aback is Priyank’s father Rameshbhai by his young son’s death that he has slipped into a state of shock. Even as Priyank’s life was snuffed out in the accident, his friends were full of remorse at the hospital. “We should not have let him hang out of the train like that. His moist hand slipped off the wet handle and he lost control,” said his friend Elvis Cyril. “It is being probed as to how he fell off the train,” said senior inspector Megha Kadam of railway police at Churchgate, adding that the police had registered a case of accidental death.