In a freak accident, a 45-year-old woman died on the spot, after she got crushed between a tree and her car’s door on Wednesday. The incident has been reported from Bengaluru’s upscale Sadashivanagar neighbourhood and took place as she inadvertently turned on the ignition of her parked car, without fully getting inside the vehicle. The issue came to light when neighbours spotted the victim, Nandini Rao, lying unconscious on the pavement. The police were alerted and she was rushed to Columbia Asia Hospital where she was declared brought dead.
Police said that she died as a result of her fatal head injury. CCTV footage of the incident, captured from a security camera placed on a building on the opposite side of the road, shows the woman approaching the car and opening the door. She turns on the ignition even as she stands by the door, and the car quickly moves backward, trapping her between the door of her luxury sedan and the tree.
Police suspect this mishap happened as the car was left in reverse gear. Sadashivnagar Traffic Police Station has registered a case of “self-accident”. Police said that the fatal accident could have been prevented, if a standard practice of putting the hand brakes on, had been followed.
Freak accident in Bengaluru. Woman dies after getting crushed between car door and tree pic.twitter.com/23LTwIyJ15
— Soumya Chatterjee (@Csoumya21) October 9, 2020
A police officer in the know said, “This is a very unusual accident. We are seeing this for the first time in our police station at least. In the CCTV footage, we saw that she started the car without getting inside the vehicle and as the vehicle was in reverse gear, she was dragged and got crushed between the tree and the car door.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nandini, who lived with her husband Harish, an engineer, and their child would not go out often, police said. However, they would come out to turn on the ignition of the car once in a while. Wednesday’s mishap had occurred while Nandini was doing the same.