Jagdish in the nursing home in Siliguri. Picture by Kundan Yolmo

Oct. 24: Bruised, bleeding and broken from a 100-metre fall as their car tumbled down a ravine, Jagish Dayal Agarwal’s family waited out the night without food or water and thousands of ants and mosquitoes swarming on their wounds, praying for morning and help to arrive.

Morning did, but not help. With his wife groaning in pain, his children bruised and shocked, Jagdish decided to take his chances against the thick jungle and find help on the banks of the gushing Teesta several hundred feet below him.

His efforts paid off as he spotted two youths fishing in the river near Kalijhora.

Lying in the intensive care unit of a private nursing home in Siliguri, 52-year-old Jagdish, a well-to-do businessman from Jaigaon, thanked the gods for saving all five of them. Even Jagdish does not know how his wife, son, two grandchildren and himself managed to spend nearly 12 hours on the slope of the hill below NH 31A from where the car he was driving had rolled down almost 100 metres around 5 pm yesterday.

Jagdish was driving the red Alto when they left Kalimpong last evening. When the car reached the Lower Pool area near Kalijhora around 45 km from Kalimpong, a bus approaching from the opposite direction hit the vehicle with its rear bumper while crossing it, sending it tumbling into the ravine on the left side of the highway.

“The headlights were smashed. We were left in darkness. After a brief period of numbness followed by excruciating pain, I heard my son Akash (12), from somewhere above us. He had managed to jump out before the car tumbled down,” Jagdish told The Telegraph.

“Akash scrambled down to help me. My finger was bleeding and I could not move my right hand. I limped off looking for my wife, Janaki and grandchildren, Avishek (7), and Priyanka (8). They were in the backseat of the car and screaming for help. But there was no trace of my wife,” he said.

Almost an hour later, Jagdish heard Janaki groaning. She had fallen a few meters below them and could not move her body.

“I advised the kids to stay where they were (behind a tree) and reached Janaki,” Jagdish recalled. “We spent the night waiting for dawn to break. Thousands of ants and mosquitoes gorged themselves on our blood.

“At first light, I decided to go down to the Teesta. flowing below the dense jungle cover. I found the two youths who called others and contacted our relatives in Siliguri and Jaigaon. By 8 am we were shifted to this nursing home,” he said.

Doctors said the children had escaped with minor injuries. Jagdish and Janaki had sustained multiple fractures but are out of danger.