The lone passenger to survive the Air India crash that killed 241 people on board Thursday found himself near debris after being thrown out of the plane and walked to a nearby ambulance for aid, a medic said.
A doctor at Ahmedabad’s Civil Hospital identified the man as Vishwashkumar Ramesh, and Indian Home Minister Amit Shah said he met the survivor. The airline said he was a British national of Indian origin.
“He was disoriented with multiple injuries all over his body,” Dr. Dhaval Gameti, who treated Ramesh, told The Associated Press. “But he seems to be out of danger.”
Another medic said Ramesh told him that immediately after the plane took off, it began descending and suddenly split in two, throwing him out before a loud explosion.
Video broadcast by Indian news channels appeared to show a bloodied Ramesh walking away from the crash site and people running behind him.
Ramesh, who had his boarding pass with him in the hospital, told local newspaper Hindustan Times that he saw remains and parts of the plane strewn around the crash site.
“When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran,” he told the newspaper.
Ramesh was traveling to London with his brother and called relatives in Leicester after the crash, his cousin, Ajay Valgi, told the BBC.
“He only said that he’s fine, nothing else,” Valgi said, adding that the family is “happy that he’s OK, but we’re still upset about the other brother.”
Nayan Kumar Ramesh told Sky News that his brother called his father moments after the crash to say he had survived.
“He video called my dad as he crashed and said, ‘Oh the plane’s crashed. I don’t know where my brother is. I don’t see any other passengers. I don’t know how I’m alive, how I exited the plane’,” he told Sky.
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Saaliq and Hussain reported from Srinagar, India. Kirka reported from London