Car driver fined Rs 11,000 for blocking ambulance

A car driver who did not make way for an ambulance that was ferrying an 85-year-old man who suffered a heart attack and subsequently died was on Saturday fined Rs 11,000 in Mysuru.
Mysuru city assistant commissioner of police (traffic) SN Sandesh Kumar said the driver, Jayanth, a resident Hassan, was penalised Rs 10,000 for not giving way for a vehicle attending to an emergency, and an additional Rs 1,000 for driving dangerously. “He has been penalised under provisions of the Motor Vehicles (amendment) Act, 2019,” Kumar said.
On August 22, Chandrashekar Acharya, 85, a resident of Chikkamagaluru, suffered a heart attack and was en route to a multispecialty hospital in Mysuru in an ambulance. Leaving Chikkamagaluru, Kishore, the driver, reached Belavadi Junction on Hunsur Road in Mysuru around 8.30pm, where he found that the road was blocked by a car, driven by Jayanth.
Though the ambulance’s sirens were blaring and Kishore repeatedly pressed the horn, Jayanth refused to move the car. Jayanth parked it across the road, blocking the path near Hootagalli. Kishore was forced to alight from the ambulance and implore Jayanth to make way, but to no avail. In fact, Jayanth refused to move the car even when the patient’s relatives beseeched him. The argument ensued for 15 minutes, and by the time the ambulance reached the hospital, Acharya was declared ‘dead on arrival’. ‘ Doctors told the relatives that the time lost in bringing him may have cost his life.