M A I N   N E W S

Go-carting turns tragic for Amritsar girl
n Unitech’s Adventure Island in Delhi in dock for negligence,
n Accident bares poor safety in ‘world-class’ amusement park
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 5
On this February 1 when newly wed Neha Saini, a Tribune staffer at Amritsar, was excitingly looking forward to a joy ride at a well-known adventure park in the Capital, she had no clue about the tragedy that awaited her.

It was all going well, just as it should on a holiday. But within minutes of settling into a go-cart at Adventure Island, a self-proclaimed “world-class” amusement park in Rohini in northwest Delhi, Neha found herself being rushed to the Operation Theatre of a locality hospital, profusely bleeding from the scalp.

Her long hair had got sucked into the motor of an unsecured engine, perched dangerously at the rear of the cart that she was riding. The helmet she wore was loose and came off from the jerks. Worse still, the 26-year-old was inclined terribly close to the uncovered engine body behind her after the go-carting attendant advised her to seat herself so to adjust the long distance between her feet and the pedals.

It was a prefect recipe for disaster, with all three layers of skin (epidermis, dermis and hypodermis) on Neha’s scalp coming off in seconds, baring her skull in parts and causing huge blood loss. She had to be given six units.

It took four hours of plastic surgery at Rohini’s Saroj Hospital to repair some damage. “It is a grievous injury which could have proved life threatening. She lost the entire flap on her scalp. We have grafted, using skin from her thighs,” Dr PK Gambhir, attending to Neha, told The Tribune today. She will undergo another surgery on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police today booked the park management for negligent conduct with respect to machinery (Section 287 IPC) and endangering the life and personal safety of others (Section 337 of the IPC).

Though the FIR lodged by Neha, a Tribune staffer at Amritsar, names no accused, The Tribune has learnt that Adventure Island, a 62-acre amusement park in Sector 10, Rohini, is contained in the Metro Walk Mall, and jointly owned by real estate giants Unitech and International Amusement, the promoters of Appu Ghar.

When contacted, DGM, Park Operations, Unitech, Mohit Sahni regretted the incident but described it as an accident, not an act of negligence. He said the FIR would not apply to Unitech but to the contractor who managed go-carts for the park.

“We have sublet the go-carting area and the contractor is responsible for accidents. Our rides, however, are internationally approved. Go-carting as such is an uninsured adventure sport which requires riders to protect themselves. Neha had tied her hair loosely and they came off during the ride. Before the riders board our carts, we get them to sign bonds which carry basic precautions. Tying the hair tightly is one of them. Neha and her relatives who took the rides have signed those papers,” Sahni said.

Whatever the defence, the incident has bared the dangerous side of adventure parks in India, where emergency response is lacking, especially in case of new adventure sports like go-carting. At Adventure Island, the go-carts are just about five months old. The park owners even claim that “their rides are imported from the suppliers who cater to international amusement parks like the Disney World and Universal.”

The claims, however, fell flat in Neha’s case, where even the attendants on duty failed to respond in time. “We had to run to arrange the ambulance which arrived after precious minutes had been lost,” Neha’s cousin Kapil says. Adventure Island, which offers 26 rides, has just one ambulance.