Locals heroically save a drowning Mumbai family of four!

Mumbai rains make news every year owing to lot of mishaps and accidents. Though monsoons carry a certain kind of romantic notion with them, I’m sure Mumbaikars' opinions may vary. Yesterday, a family of four from Wavanje village in Navi Mumbai faced a near death experience due to the rain-swollen rivers. Fortunately, they were saved by five locals and lived to tell the tale.

Ashraf Shaikh (37) was travelling to Taloja by car around noon on Monday, with his wife –Hamida (33), daughter –Suhana (7), and niece –Namira (17). Reportedly, the car they were travelling in fell off a narrow, unsecured bridge into the waters of Ghot, a tributary of Kasadi river that flows through Taloja . The family was trapped in the car in a five-foot-deep rocky portion of the river .

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“We were travelling to my brother's residence at Taloja by car. around noon, I could not clearly see the road due to the incessant downpour. I cannot recollect what exactly happened after I swerved to take the bridge. The car flipped twice before it got trapped between boulders inside Ghot", said Ashraf to the Times Of India.

The Shaikh family was lucky as five locals(Narayan Patil, Lahu Patil, Laxman Dhumal and Tushiram Nighukar from Ghot village, and Rupesh Patil from Karole village) intervened timely and jumped to their rescue. They broke the windshield of the sinking car and pulled out the family onto the car’s roof. They had to sit on the roof for 15 minutes before locals could bring them to safety with a rope, one by one.

Here is a video showing the rescue mission:

“The incident occurred around 12 pm when the car was moving from Wavanje village towards Taloja Phase I. When the vehicle reached the narrow bridge near Ghot village and tried to take a left turn at the end of the 10-foot-long bridge, its rear wheel slipped off the road and it fell into the tributary. Fortunately, it got stuck between huge underwater rocks. But before police and fire brigade teams could reach the spot, a group of five locals had rescued the car’s occupants,” commented Senior Inspector Ajay Landge on the incident.

The women sustained minor injuries because of the glass splinters, but apart from that the family is safe and unharmed.