Surjeet Singh Gill slipped on accumulated rain water and fell face down on concrete floor while trying to board his flight to London.
MUMBAI: When 58-year-old Surjeet Singh Gill left home to go to the Sahar International Airport on July 3, he had little idea that what he thought was a trip to London would end with his being admitted to Nanavati hospital.
Gill slipped on accumulated rain water and fell face down on concrete floor while trying to board his flight. He recovered consciousness 10 minutes later, to find himself in a wheelchair, with a bleeding forehead and swollen eye. Gill said he was unattended for nearly ninety minutes, till his wife, whom he called using his mobile phone, reached the airport and took him to Nanvati hospital. He received six stitches on his forehead and was treated for the swollen eye. Gill was finally discharged on July 5 and advised ten-day rest.
According to records of the Airports Authority of India, airport medical officer Dr Jyoti attended to Gill at 12:25am and wrote a note on her letterhead saying that the passenger must be taken to a hospital.
Airport manager Vivek Atri said an ambulance is available round the clock, but the onus of taking the passenger to hospital is with the airline. “After a passenger is issued a boarding pass he becomes a responsibility of the airline he is travelling with. If Jet staffers had asked for the ambulance we would have provided one. We do not have any request on our records,” Atri said.
Jet Airways’ station manager Mukund Kulkarni said that though Dr Jyoti referred the passenger to the hospital she did not provide the ambulance. “It is duty of the doctor to make arrangements for the patient to be carried to the ambulance. But Jyoti left the scene after giving some tablets and ice cubes to Gill,” Kulkarni said.
He added that three other passengers had slipped at the same spot where Gill hurt himself. Fortunately, none were seriously injured. “It was only after I filed a written complaint with AAI that a worker cleared the water”, Kulkarni said.
Attempts to contact Dr Jyoti were unsuccessful.
While the airline and airport authority are playing a game of passing the buck, Gill is incensed. “I am in consultation with my lawyers and will file a case of criminal negligence against the concerned authorities once the doctors give me the go ahead to move again,” the Versova resident said.
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