Family's 'seriously helpless' search for Flinders Street victim after son heard father get hit by car
Updated
The family of Rohit Kaul, who was struck by a car outside Flinders Street train station while on the phone to his young son, has described their desperate bid to find out his fate amid the chaos.
Eighteen people were admitted to hospital following the incident, 14 of them remain there, with three in a critical condition.
Mr Noori has since been released from hospital and taken into custody, where he has held "preliminary discussions" with police.
On Thursday afternoon Mr Kaul was on the phone to his 13-year-old son Avi when he was knocked over by the car driven by Mr Noori, starting a frantic family dash to work out what had happened.
Mr Kaul's wife called her brother Neel Raizada, who was a few blocks away from the incident, and the family tracked Mr Kaul's iPhone to see where he was.
When they had the location, Mr Raizada began a mad dash towards Flinders Street.
"I ran from there and then I saw police cars coming, too many cars [going at] high speed. And something happened to me, [I realised] that there is something wrong, seriously wrong," he said.
"I had no idea that this incident had taken place, I thought there might be some brawl or something."
When he reached Collins Street it had already been blocked off.
"I can't even begin, this whole situation what I saw there — I could see the white car, the smoke coming out from the bonnet — it just hit me," he said.
"I could not find him, I could not get any information, it was all my guess that Rohit might have been involved because of the way the whole situation was explained to me by Natasha and Avi on the phone.
"I was telling police to help me out with information because I know that my brother-in-law was there and something happened to him … nobody told me anything.
"I felt seriously helpless."
Crash victim had no memory of incident
Eventually the family heard from a witness who saw what happened to Mr Kaul and got in touch with his phone.
Mr Raizada said his brother-in-law wound up in the Alfred Hospital with a crushed tibia, broken ribs and "so many bruises", but no memory of what had happened to him.
"It looks like that the half an hour has just vanished, he was asking us 'what happened, I do remember up to this point giving my number to someone on the road and after that I have no recollection of anything'," he said.
The 45-year-old, who is the captain of his local cricket club, has since had surgery and is on pain medication and "the road to recovery".
"It was a lucky escape for him, from this big ordeal he's come out alive and is with us today. It's really good."
Mr Raizada said the family had been hit hard by the incident.
"Avi, Rohit's son, I could not see him the way he was crying. Because he was on the phone when it happened, so it was very traumatic for him," he said.
"They are in pretty bad shape and we are here to support them … but you know we are human, we have this nature of acceptance and we just take things as they happen," he said.
Topics: emergency-incidents, police, melbourne-3000, vic
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