When an Air India Express plane with 190 other people on board crashed at a Kerala airport in southern India last week, dozens of citizens rushed to help. They rescued passengers and took them to hospitals. Officials say that component of explaining why the death toll is so low. Ashraf Padanna spoke to some of the volunteers.
Fazal Puthiyakath, 32, and 8 of his friends were quarantined when they recently won a visit.
This is a cop named Nizar. Standing in the distance, he told them that he had come to pay homage to his bravery.
“I have a lot of respect for you, but I brought nothing to offer you. It’s the gift I can give you,” he said, raising his arms in a sign of salvation.
Puthiyakath and his friends were among the dozens of locals who had run to Kozhikode Airport (formerly known as Calicut) when a repatriation flight from Dubai crashed into landing and split in two. Eighteen people, adding up the two pilots, died.
The organization had helped save dozens of other people and is now quarantined, due to the threat of catching the Covid-19 of the other people they rescued.
A policeman symbol waving to the men while standing on the terrace of their quarantine center went viral on social media.
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The organization said he also won countless calls, usually from relatives of other people on board, thanking them for saving their loved ones.
Puthiyakath, who lives a hundred feet (300 feet) from the airport, says he was one of the first to respond to the site. “About six of us controlled to get there a few minutes after the accident. The doors were locked and other people were screaming for help,” he told the BBC. “Security officers first refused to open the doors because firefighters were spraying foam on the plane.
But with the threat of the chimney dissipated, they were allowed in. Puthiyakath said the scene was heartbreaking.
“Many passengers were unconscious. Some were trapped in their seats. We had to take their seat belts off the plane.”
They began helping rescuers release other people and take them to the hospital.
Regional fire officer K Abdul Rasheed, who at the crash site, said local volunteers had taken a huge risk.
“The airport firefighters sprayed foam without delay after the turn of fate in the fires. But a small spark or fault may have led to a wonderful tragedy,” he said.
Meanwhile, news of the accident spread through the WhatsApp network. Dozens more rushed to see how they could help.
Then, when rescuers began transporting passengers, there was a fleet of personal cars in a position to take them to the hospital. Authorities say it alone stored many lives because hospitals had only a limited number of ambulances.
Fazal Karalil, 33, a driving force of trucks and also one of those who arrived at the scene, told the BBC that he had no idea of the threat of coronavirus at the time.
“We use all the cars at our disposal, adding trucks and rickshaws. We didn’t have time to wait for an ambulance.”
Among them, citizens transported the sick to about 20 hospitals within a 30 km (18 mile) radius.
“The volunteers took them to the hospital, without waiting for the ambulances to arrive. They didn’t care about their own safety,” Rasheed said.
Dr. PP Venugopalan, Director of Emergency Medicine at a hospital in Kozhikode, estimates that the action has stored at least 10 lives.
“The other people in the neighborhood had been trained in trauma care and how to deal with them,” he told the BBC.
“In 2012, the district administration conducted a mock air accidents involving about 650 people, which I think is the largest in India. The [Air India’] plane fell in precisely the same place.”
“It took me a month to exercise members of the local community, adding taxi drivers. Everyone won the hands-on exercise. I think it’s also helped the number of victims.”
Some 200,000 more people in the Kozhikode and Malappuram districts of Kerala have obtained education in number one trauma care and early resuscitation.
Dr. Venugopalan said the community reaction was so effective that most of the ambulances he sent returned empty from the airport, as the volunteers had already transported passengers to hospitals in their personal vehicles.
Meanwhile, in addition to providing them with medical care, citizens also helped passengers desperately seeking news from their loved ones and the circle of relatives who had accompanied them on the flight.
“Without delay, we formed a WhatsApp rescue staff organization and published all the data we got so they can locate whether their circle of family members were in other hospitals,” Puthiyakath said.
By the time he was taken home, Puthiyakath said, around 3:30 a.m. They showed up to police at the scene of the turn of fate a few hours later and were quarantined.
Since then, they have all been treated like heroes: their stories have been shared on social media through journalists and celebrities.
“People now cover us with love and affection after we enter the mandatory 14-day quarantine. They send us smart food every day,” Karalil laughs.
Judge Devan Ramachandran of the Superior Court of Kerala wrote a poetic tribute to citizens who volunteered in a portal committed to legal matters.
“The gods came down from heaven yesterday. Ordinary men who feared not for themselves, but a deep love for all. Men who risked Covid and defied the wounds so that those who suffered the maximum can be saved.
“Kerala is in the hands of those brave and natural souls.”
Ashraf Padanna is a journalist in Kerala.