Railway Protection Force (RPF) official plays hero, saves man from coming under train

A Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel put his life in danger to save a passenger who slipped into the gap between the platform and the train at Manmad station early on Monday. The passenger, Vinod Sharma, 30, was alighting from a moving train, the Punjab Mail.

Narrating the incident, Vijay Jadhav, 43, assistant sub-inspector at Manmad RPF office, said, “I was patrolling platform number one at Manmad station on Sunday night. Around 1am on Monday, the Punjab Mail arrived. I saw eight passengers alighting from the general compartment and rushing towards the adjoining air-conditioned coach. Two among them succeeded in boarding but the rest of the family members were left on the platform as the train had started moving.”

The two who had boarded then tried to alight to join their family members, Jadhav added. While one of them managed to get down, the other, Sharma, slipped and fell into the gap. Jadhav said, “His family members screamed for help. I rushed there and caught him before he could get dragged under the train and pulled him out. He was not fully conscious.” With the help TCs and his family members, Sharma was taken to the Manmad civil hospital.

Sharma said, “I am thankful to Vijay Jadhav for saving my life. I would have been crushed under the wheels of the train had he not pulled me up. My family and I had boarded the crowded general compartment of Punjab Mail at Nashik to go to Khandwa in MP. When the train reached Manmad, we decided to shift to the AC coach. That’s what led to this whole incident.”

Sharma hails from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh.

@dayanand_kamath