'He Screamed For Help, But Authorities Lacked Means, Were Not Equipped To Save Him': Deceased Noida Techie's Father To Republic

Noida: After a 27-year-old software engineer, Yuvraj Mehta, lost his life on Friday (January 16) night when his speeding car crashed into a flooded basement in Noida's Sector-150, his father said on Sunday that the death could have been prevented only if the authorities had better resources to assist them in the rescue procedure.

Speaking to Republic TV, the victim's father, Rajkumar Mehta, said, "I reached the exact spot, but it took me at least 40 minutes to get there. I told him I am trying to find a way to rescue him. I called the police, who took about another 20 minutes. Police personnel called the fire brigade team. But none of the teams had any meaningful support system to help the victim. They had no diver, swimmer or boat to assist them in the rescue operation."

He also said that his son kept screaming for help the entire time while reiterating that he wanted to survive. "He kept struggling. In an attempt to keep the car in a position that would help him survive, he somehow managed to get out of the vehicle and lay down flat on the roof of the car."

But the teams called to rescue him did not have the means to do so, the father alleged. "They had lights and ropes. If they had at least a swimmer with them, or if they had tried to reach a little farther and then thrown across the rescue rope, my son would have been alive. He was constantly trying to survive," he added.

A little later, Yuvraj allegedly turned on his cell phone's flashlight and flagged that the vehicle was gradually submerging. When asked about how many police officials were present at the spot, his father said, "The entire team was present. But they still failed to save my son due to the lack of necessary resources."

What happened on the night of the accident

As per reports, the victim lost control of his vehicle due to dense fog conditions, resulting in the car breaching a wall and becoming submerged in a basement filled with water.  Following a specialised recovery operation by the SDRF and NDRF lasting hours, the individual, who was extracted from a depth of 30 feet, was declared dead by the hospital on arrival.

While the SDRF arrived, they lacked the proper equipment to help. It wasn't until an NDRF team arrived from Ghaziabad that a specialised operation using steamers was launched. They recovered Yuvraj after two and a half hours, but he was pronounced dead at Kailash Hospital.

Yuvraj was a resident of the Tata Eureka Park Society in Sector-150 and worked as a software engineer at Dunnhumby India in Gurugram. Mehta primarily worked from home, visiting the Sector-54 office only on occasion. According to sources, the victim was driving his Grand Vitara back from the Gurugram office on Friday night and was only about 500 meters from his residence when thick fog obscured his view, causing him to strike a drain wall, following which the vehicle plunged into a water-filled basement, where the high water levels caused the car to flip over and float.

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