Write Comment     |     E-Mail To a Friend     |     Facebook     |     Twitter     |     Print

Soori Shetty has made it his mission to save lives since 1988

If there is a road accident on National Highway 66 in Kaup or its surroundings, the first call is likely to go to Soori Shetty.

Mr. Shetty (49) has made it a mission to save the lives of people injured in road accidents since 1988. He has saved several lives by rushing the accident victims to the hospital.

As soon as he comes to know about an accident, he rushes to the spot and stops any vehicle coming on the road, and takes the injured to hospital. “An ambulance takes a lot of time to come. Every minute is important in saving lives,” he says.

Mr. Shetty, a mason by profession, has studied till class three. In 1988, he witnessed an accident near Kaup where a car hit a scooter. He rushed the two persons on the scooter to Kasturba Hospital in Manipal. “One of them survived. After this incident, I have always made it a point to help accident victims,” he said.

How does he get the information about the accident? “I have many friends who call me. Even the police call me,” he said.

Though he works as a mason, he gives up work midway when he receives a call about an accident. He does not like to leave Kaup for a day. “Once I had gone out of the town, and there were two accidents. That made me sad,” he says.

His work has not gone unnoticed. Before mobile phones became common, the Kaup police provided him with a landline. One of his friends provided him with a motorcycle so he could rush to the accident spots.Two months ago, Lakshmivara Tirtha Swami of Shiroor Mutt provided him with an ambulance so he could take the patients straight to hospital without waiting for any vehicle.

“People should always help those involved in accidents. Just think for a moment, what if your own relative meets with an accident,” he asks.

How many lives has he saved in the last 27 years? “I have not kept count. It must be over 300,” he says modestly.

That is not all. Mr. Shetty helps in taking out dead bodies from wells and also transporting decomposed and dead bodies from the seashore to hospitals.

District police to release three films on road safety soon

K. Annamalai, Superintendent of Police, said on Friday that the district police would soon be releasing three short films on road safety.

He was speaking after releasing a Kannada short film CD titled ‘Manaviyate’ focusing on road safety, here.

The 15-minute short film produced by Surendra Marpalli focuses on how people take photos on their mobile telephones when accidents take place instead of helping the accident victims.

Mr. Annamalai said the district police had asked the Nitte-based Justice K.S. Hegde Institute of Management to produce three short films focusing on issues such as drunken driving, reckless driving, and driving while talking on mobile telephones. The scripts for these films were ready.

The Udupi district police will also launch an interactive website on September 21 or 22. The three short films will be uploaded on the website after they were produced.

There was one road accident taking place every minute in the country, while one person was dying in a road accident every four minutes. In Udupi in 2013, there were 1,311 road accidents and 239 persons lost their lives, while in 2014, there were 1,181 road accidents and 220 persons lost their lives. Till July 2015, there were 787 road accidents and 131 persons had died.

Most people hesitated to help accident victims because they felt that they would be harassed by the police. But this was not so. Anyone could take the accident victims to the hospitals and inform the police. If they were not interested in giving statements, they could clearly say so. The police could not compel them.

“Helping accident victims within one hour is essential as it is the ‘golden hour’ and helps save lives,” he said. “If people give witness statement, it will help in getting insurance and other facilities,” he added.

Mr. Surendra Marpalli said his best friend, who was driving on a motorcycle from Udupi to Kaup, met with an accident recently. He was struggling between life and death for 20 minutes on the road and then died there.

People, instead of taking him to hospital, were busy taking photos on their mobile phones and uploading it on social media. “This shocked me. Hence, I decided to do the film to give the message that people should first take the victims to the hospitals than record the incident on cell telephones,” he said.

Nitte-based Justice K.S. Hegde Institute of Management have been asked to produce them