NAGPUR: Two youths drowned, and one is fighting for life in hospital, after tragedy struck at the wave pool at
Krazy Castle Aqua Park on Sunday at around 1pm. Reports said almost a dozen persons had got caught in the artificial waves in the pool, but the presence of mind shown by two youngsters snatched several from the jaws of death.
The water park is to shut down just 10 days from now, as Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) has terminated its contract to make way for the Mahametro project. However, the park, which has reportedly never recorded a death in the three decades of its existence, is facing questions from the police about improper management and security systems.
The park continued to operate the wave pool for at least three hours after the drownings, while the park was operational at least till 5pm, said witnesses. The park also did not inform the cops, who came to know about the incident from the hospital two hours later.
Sometime later in the day, the office of the subdivisional magistrate at the collectorate ordered immediate closure of the park till further notice.
Sources said many people were caught in the 7-8 feet tall waves created by machines in the pool, which is three to six feet deep. Those who died in the waves were identified as Akshay Bind (19) and Sagar Sahastrabudhe (21), while
Snehal Motghare (22) is recuperating at Wockhardt Hospital. Bind was a 2nd year student of commerce at
VMV College while Sahastrabudhe was a 1st year science student at Kamla Nehru College, Jaripatka. Motghare is doing his masters in science stream from Institute of Science, Civil Lines. Bind had come with nine friends while Sahastrabudhe and Motghare were part of a different group.
Bind’s friends, Nayan Pathrabe, Akshay Ambulkar, Aditya Khawale and Adarsh Ramteke, had a miraculous escape as their two friends, Rutuz Dev and Yash Bharadwaj, managed to pull many away from certain death. Sahastrabudhe and Motghare’s eight to 10 friends too had a narrow escape.
Surprisingly, the water park staffers did not accompany the injured to the hospital but were sent in autorickshaws. The
Bajaj Nagar cops arrived two hours later, after Wockhardt Hospital sent them an intimation as part of their mandatory medico-legal case exercise. Shockingly, the management had not closed the wave pool despite two deaths in it when TOI reached the place, two-and-a-half hours later.
The friends of the deceased also challenged the statements of lifeguard Ravi Rahangdale and supervisor Rajesh Badwaik to PI Gnyaneshwar Patil, that they tried their best to save lives. The survivors claimed none of the guards did anything to promptly stop the mechanized waves.
Bind’s friends, Pathrabe, Bharadwaj and others claimed none of the guards came forward to help, or reacted, even as people shouted to stop the waves. “The public saved us and not the guards,” they said.
Amol Janbandhu, who was with Sahastrabudhe and Motghare, said there was no first aid, nor anyone trained in such skills, at the park. “The guards were asking us to bring energy drink and wafers even while cleaning blood oozing from the nose and froth from the mouth of Sahastrabudhe,” he said.
The family members of the dead also created a ruckus at Wockhardt Hospital, refusing to shift the bodies until the water park management was sent behind bars.
Kamal Agrawal, one of the directors of Haldiram Foods, told TOI he will refer to CCTV footage of the premises and conduct an internal inquiry. “We shall not spare anyone if they have erred,” he said.
Senior PI Patil of Bajaj Nagar police station said the case has been registered as accidental death.
Representative image