Sgt Soumik Sengupta. Picture by Amit Datta

A septuagenarian who suffered a heart attack on a bus on crowded Brabourne Road on Wednesday afternoon was rushed to hospital in a taxi by two constables, while a sergeant played the “pilot”, clearing the road with his blaring siren. They reached Medical College and Hospital in minutes. A delay in starting treatment would have been fatal, said doctors.

Sunil Adhikari, 72, who had been diagnosed with a high cholesterol level in February, started feeling giddy in a packed Park Circus-Bankra minibus and lost consciousness around 4.20pm. Luckily for the man from Howrah’s Belepur, the commotion on the bus attracted the attention of sergeant Soumik Sengupta, who was manning the Brabourne Road-Jackson Lane crossing.

“Adhikari had lost consciousness by the time I reached the spot. Evidently, he needed quick medical assistance. Along with constables Debraj Dey and Krishna Koley, I got him into a taxi as soon as possible,” Sengupta told Metro. “There was a traffic snarl in the area. So while Dey and Koley sat with Adhikari in the taxi, I cleared the road for them. We made it to Medical College in about 10 minutes.”

The officer went through Adhikari’s cellphone, found out the contact numbers of his nephews and nieces — with whom the unmarried man lives — and informed them. “The sergeant’s presence was a blessing. We will never be able to repay his debt. He even stayed back in the hospital till we arrived,” said nephew Gopal Debnath.

Arghya Basu, who treated Adhikari, said: “The patient had suffered a third-degree heart block along with acute myocardial infarction and ventricular arrhythmia, in which the pumping function of the heart gets affected.” The doctors said Adhikari needs a pacemaker and offered to admit him. But the patient’s relatives took him home because they could not afford a pacemaker. “He was in a stable condition when we released him,” added Basu.