PANJIM: A car that was moving in front of us suddenly swerved sharply and the oncoming car was right in front of us. We had no chance to react and it hit us.
I flew over his (rider) head and he fell bang in front of the car. A woman got out and tried to move Pele (the rider Sandesh Khutkar) out of the way. I realized that I had probably hit the windscreen as it was broken and had fallen to one side of the car.
It looked as if she was trying to get Pele out of the way so she could get away. She was screaming. I yelled at her, telling her not to touch him as he looked badly hurt and was not moving. By then, the other vehicle that had swerved out of the way stopped and a man came running towards us and stopped her. If not for him, she would probably have escaped.
She was still screaming and yelling and had a very aggressive demeanor.
By then several passers-by stopped and the police and the 108 ambulance were called. Both came promptly but the police came faster. I was worried for Pele – we called him Pele – because he loved and used to play football.
It was pouring.
Looking at the swelling crowd and listening to their talk, I knew something terrible had happened to him.
The police by now had detained the woman.
Once the ambulance came, I accompanied Sandesh to the hospital. He was screaming all the way, writhing in pain saying ‘I did not do anything’. We were later admitted to the ICU.
For Kaiser Braganza from Mira Mar, this was his second brush with drunk drivers. The first time was a couple of years back when another drunk driver in an Innova hit him from behind, sped off, then hit somebody else and finally hit a bus stop.
Sources say he got away with hardly any punishment, due to his influence.
