Saved by a divine hand

In a bizarre incident on Friday evening, a man survived being dragged by a Metro train for a kilometre, after his hand got caught in the train’s doors.

In a bizarre incident on Friday evening, a man survived being dragged by a Metro train for a kilometre, after his hand got caught in the train’s doors.

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Satender Kumar Jaiswal, a 23-year-old customer facilitation agent of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), was helping commuters at Rajiv Chowk station around 7.30 pm when the incident happened.

It was peak hour. As passengers pushed and shoved to get inside the train, Jaiswal’s hand got stuck in the doors.

As the train started to move, passengers on board tried to pull him in. The train soon picked up speed and Jaiswal was dragged inside the Metro tunnel for a kilometre, till the train finally stopped at the New Delhi station.

Jaiswal was finally rescued and taken to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital, where he is recuperating.

“His hand is injured but he is doing fine. Though he was hanging from the train, he didn’t receive any other injuries because, perhaps, his body was close to the train,” DMRC spokesman Anuj Dayal said.

The freak accident raises a few questions.

Metro trains are not supposed to move unless all the doors are closed. So, with a man’s hand stuck between its doors, how did the train start moving?

Dayal said the doors don’t close if the trapped object is thicker than 15 mm. He said Jaiswal’s fingers, not hands, were caught in the gap between the gates.

Surprisingly, passengers in the packed train did not push the red emergency button that would have stopped the

train. “If passengers had let go of his fingers, instead of pulling him in, he would have freed his hand. No one pressed the emergency button either,” Dayal said.

Jaiswal works for Bedi and Bedi, a private service provider of DMRC.