Nagpur: The spate of fatal accidents on Samruddhi Mahamarg continues to haunt commuters. In the instant case, a Pune-based builder, Kuldeep Barbhai (39), died at AIIMS in Nagpur, just hours after he was extricated from his mangled SUV on the Expressway, where his vehicle flipped multiple times and crashed after a tyre burst early Thursday, a report in a local media said.
Barbhai’s injured wife Pamela and 12-year-old son Neev are being treated at the hospital. The accident took place near Yedakeli in Sindi railway police limits on the Nagpur-Mumbai corridor in Wardha district.
After tyres in the front and rear burst, the speeding SUV somersaulted and crashed into the e-way’s side bars, flipped again and rammed another sidebar that ruptured its windscreen. The vehicle’s roof was ripped off in the impact. Family and friends were informed by a passer-by, who also sent an SOS to the control room. The critically injured family was rushed to Nagpur’s AIIMS hospital in an ambulance and the car towed away to the nearest police station, a media report said.
According to the report, the Barbhai family left Pune earlier in the day and were headed to Friends Colony in Nagpur for a kin’s wedding, when tragedy struck. Kuldeep had lost his grandfather a few months ago and the atmosphere at his in-laws’ home in Nagpur was sombre.
The report further said that Kuldeep was declared dead on arrival at AIIMS, while his son is in the ICU and wife is currently stable.
Inaugurated in December last year, the expressway clocked 1,040 accidents in 325 days with the death toll touching 132 so far. At least 80 died in the Nagpur range till October.
