The car was declared a total loss, while the passengers managed to escape with minor injuries.
BHPian GeneralJazz recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
My friend met with an accident on Sunday. We were returning from a Kodaikanal trip, me and my wife in my Rapid and he with his family, in his Verna automatic.
Location:
Pazhani ghat, around 25kms from Pazhani.
Incident:
We both started from Kodaikanal by around 12 PM. I was several cars behind him and was following a pickup truck at a good distance. Suddenly after a curve, the pick up came to a sudden halt. I didn’t have to panic brake, since I had left a sufficient gap. A TN state bus came in the opposite direction with a few of its side windows smashed. I thought that some bigger vehicle ahead must have sideswiped it. But then I saw several people running towards the front, some in panic. I moved the car to the side and walked forward and saw this:
Here’s what happened. The mini-bus was being driven quite fast. The driver saw the approaching TN state bus and swerved to the left to make space. But he misjudged the space available. There was a rocky protrusion on the side and he drove straight into it. The rear fishtailed and sideswiped the TN bus. My friend who was following (maybe a bit too close) was caught off guard and crashed into the mini-bus.
No airbags were deployed.
Injuries:
Everyone in his car was wearing a seatbelt, including his wife and 2 young kids. Minor injuries only, mostly seat belt bruise and some cuts.Few passengers of the mini-bus were injured. I think a few were bleeding from cuts and bruises. My wife is a doctor and checked on a few of them to make sure they were OK. An ambulance arrived about an hour later and took the more injured passengers towards Pazhani.
It was starting to get dark, so we took his family with us to have them checked at a hospital. A doctor friend guided us to a hospital in Pollachi where they ruled out any major injuries. Painkillers were deemed sufficient.
Damages:
Once the backed up traffic was cleared, I moved my car next to theirs. We called up Chandra Hyundai to request a tow truck. There was barely any signal and we had a tough time connecting. Finally, they arranged for a truck, but it had to come all the way from Coimbatore. Took about 3 hours for it to reach. The vehicle was towed to their service centre. The repair estimate was around 4 lakhs, and so the vehicle was declared a total loss.
Keyword: Accident near Kodaikanal: Our Verna crashes into mini-bus