Parinaz Khambatta, 22, is recovering from a serious accident because the police and the government hospital where she was taken behaved in one way.

Saheli Roy, 25, died — the police and the government hospital she was taken to behaved in another way.

It’s luck that seems to decide how police and government hospitals will react or not react when confronted with an accident victim.

Parinaz was run over by a bus in Bowbazar on Wednesday evening and taken by bystanders to Medical College and Hospital, where she was given blood and treated. When her father, Khushroo Khambatta, arrived and sought to take her to a private hospital, she was quickly released.

Saheli, who met with an accident on Saturday morning, neither received treatment at NRS, nor did the police and the hospital permit her father, Prabir Roy, to shift her to Apollo Gleneagles.

“I was only asked to sign a paper and fill up a few details,” Khushroo Khambatta, who works in an engineering consultancy, said on Thursday.

The accident took place around 5.30pm when Parinaz was returning home from her MBA class. She told doctors that while standing on the footboard, she had a blackout and fell from the bus. The wheels of the bus crushed her pelvic bone and right thigh.

Although the local people took Parinaz to Medical College, the officer-in-charge of Bowbazar police station called the hospital’s medical superintendent, Anup Roy, to inform him of her serious condition.

“I asked the senior surgeon at the emergency to take care of her immediately,” Roy said.

Before her father and his friends reached at 6.30, the doctors had carried out an X-ray, given her a unit of blood and dressed her wounds.

Saheli, who had sustained a head injury, was not given any blood and simply put on oxygen and drip. She died in about two hours without treatment.

Parinaz’s family requested the doctors and the police personnel at the Medical College outpost to release her so that she could be taken to Apollo.

The police brought the no-objection form to the emergency for Khambatta to fill up. “The entire process took 10 to 15 minutes. In the meantime, we arranged for the special critical-care ambulance from Apollo,” her father said.

An officer at the outpost issued the no-objection certificate. “Since the relatives wanted to shift the girl, we assisted them in every way possible,” said a Bowbazar police station officer.

Saheli’s family had made the same request to the police personnel at NRS but the officer there did not issue one and instead, called Entally police station. Even the doctors did not agree.

The different reactions of the authorities in the two cases reveal that there are no standard procedures for handling critical accident victims or, if there are, they are not followed.