New Delhi|HL
Three resident doctors from AIIMS Delhi were killed and four were injured in an accident on the Yamuna Expressway near Mathura on Saturday night.
The accident occurred on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, near milestone 88, close to Kaiti village in Surir police jurisdiction of Mathura district. Police identified the dead as 35-year-old Harshad Wankhede, whose birthday the group was out to celebrate, 25-year-old Yashpreet Singh, and 25-year-old Hembala Taneja. And the injured doctors as Jitendra Maurya, Mahesh Kumar, Abhinav Singh, and Catherine Halam.
All were residents at the emergency medicine department of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi.
Dr Harshad was driving the Toyota Innvoa. The speeding car rammed into the rear of a truck.” “The SUV was badly damaged, with the front virtually entering the canter (truck) carrying iron rods. Three of the doctors, including Dr Wankhede, died on the spot. The four injured were taken to Bhaskar Hospital in Mathura,” said superintendent of police (rural) for Mathura, Aditya Shukla.
The driver of the truck was absconding and images from the crash site indicated that the vehicle was being driven illegally — its load should not have been protruding and the vehicle did not have a mandatory fitment that would have stopped the victims’ car from under-running into it.
A doctor at the AIIMS emergency department said they were first alerted of the accident by Halam and Singh, who shared the location of the accident site through WhatsApp. “We first thought it was a relatively minor accident as Catherine was able to type and send the message,” said Halam’s batch-mate.
