Youth survives 40 feet fall

THANE: Mangesh Garud can consider himself exceedingly lucky. The 25-year-old salesman with a multinational escaped with a few minor bruises on Thursday after falling off a moving train and into a creek 40 feet below.
Providence seemed to be watching over every inch of Garud’s commute to work. He boarded the train at Kalwa, one station before Thane, at about 10 am but failed to move inside because of the crowd."I let two Mumbai-bound trains coming from Kalyan go by because of the mad rush and somehow managed to get a toehold on the third train," he told TOI at Kalwa’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Hospital.
In his attempt to squeeze into the compartment, he failed to realize that he was approaching a signal-post by the tracks at a speed of 35 kmph. "I saw the signal-post at the last moment and tried to dodge it and, in the process, lost my grip and fell into the creek."
Here’s when he had his first stroke of luck. Instead of hitting either the tracks or the scaffolding of the bridge (which would have meant serious injury if not death), he fell through a narrow gap on the tracks. Again, luckily, the water level in the Thane creek at that time was around four feet, just the right depth to cushion his fall while ensuring that he did not drown.
"I still can’t believe how I managed to escape hitting the signal-post, the tracks and the scaffolding," Garud said. "I hit the water and, before I could realise what was happening, I saw a fisherman reaching out to me. He brought me safely to shore," Garud added.
The person he referred to was Rajesh Kharkar, one of the 25-odd local fishermen engaged by police to help in search and rescue operations. "It was low tide and the water was about four feet deep. The area is marshy and anyone falling from a height of 40 feet is likely to be sucked into the mire. But, fortunately, I was close to the spot and managed to reach him as soon as he fell," Kharkar said.