‘I am alive’: Presumed dead in Odisha train accident, man wakes up and seeks help

Thirty-five-year-old Robin Naiya was presumed dead as he was lying on the tracks after the collision of three trains near Odisha's Balasore.

The Odisha train accident, which claimed the lives of over 280 people, in the worst train tragedy in India in the past two decades, has many heartbreaking stories. In one such which however had a happy ending, a 35-year-old woke up amid the heaps of bodies and sought help, while he was presumed dead. Thirty-five-year-old Robin Naiya was presumed dead as he was lying on the tracks after the collision of three trains near Odisha's Balasore. Naiya was among hundreds of bodies that had been kept in a room in Balasore's school by rescue workers, an India Today report stated.

As many as nine teams of NDRF were deployed for rescue operations in the crash that killed 288 people and injured over 1,000.(AFP)

The rescue workers entered the room to move piles of bodies, when one of them felt someone clutching his leg. He then heard someone say, “I am alive, not dead, please give me water.”

The rescue worker saw Naiya was struggling to move and the workers rushed him to a hospital.

Read Here | ‘Seeing blood every time…’: NDRF personnel traumatised after Odisha train crash

Naiya, who was a resident of Charnekhali village in North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, lost his both legs in the accident. He was among eight people from his village who were travelling to look for work in Andhra Pradesh from Howrah from the Coromandel Express.

Still in critical condition, Naiya is undergoing treatment at the Orthopedic Ward of Medinipur Medical College Hospital in West Bengal.

Naiya's uncle Manabendra Sardar told India Today, “Robin, my nephew, was travelling to Andhra to work as a migrant laborer. As the train met with an accident, he lost consciousness. He found himself amid a pile of bodies. He held one of the rescuer’s legs asking for water, then he was discovered. Robin then asked for water and pleaded with him to save his life. The rescuers then moved him to the local hospital”

Naiya's six friends are still missing after the accident.

The accident

The train accident in Balasore involved two passenger trains Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express and Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express, and a freight train near the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore, derailing and damaging as many as 21 coaches, trapping hundreds of passengers.

As many as nine teams of NDRF were deployed for rescue operations in the crash that killed 288 people and injured over 1,000. The specialised force rescued 44 victims and retrieved 121 bodies from the spot, as per the official data.