Lecturer sees his friend fall to his death from train
A SCOTTISH university lecturer watched his friend plunge to his death from a moving train in India after the pair realised they were on the wrong service and jumped off.
Fabian Galama, a lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University, and his friend Erik Suidman were travelling by train to Agra on the final leg of a twoweek journey in western India on Tuesday.
But the Dutch pair mistakenly boarded an express to New Delhi and decided to jump off as the train left the platform in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan.
Mr Galama, 53, sustained minor injuries, but Mr Suidman, 51, who lived in Utrecht, in the Netherlands, suffered fatal head injuries after he lost his balance as he jumped and landed inches from the track. Mr Galama, an art and design lecturer, said: ‘I do not know what happened. It was all of a sudden.
‘I jumped off first and then he followed but something went wrong in between. He had his bags with him and the train was rolling.
‘It was speeding up and Erik seemed to have lost his balance. He fell just inches away from the tracks. When I picked him up he was bleeding severely.’
The two had flown into New Delhi two weeks ago on a holiday which had taken them across Rajasthan.
Mr Galama said that Agra was to be the last leg of their holiday before they were scheduled to fly home on Saturday.
He added: ‘We were waiting for the train on Platform One and when it chugged in, we asked at least three people if it was going to Agra. All of them replied with a “Yes”.
‘But it was not a local train, it was an express, so we were confused. When we went to look for our window seats, we found them occupied already. It was then that we realised we were on the wrong train.
‘As the train was leaving the platform we decided to quickly jump off.’
Mr Suidman was taken to a nearby hospital but died of his injuries.
Giga Ram, the railway police officer investigating the case, said: ‘The foreign tourists had arrived in Rajasthan on Monday and were travelling to Agra.
‘As soon as the express left, they found they had boarded a wrong train. The two jumped off the train minutes later and Erik suffered fatal head injuries. We are waiting for a post-mortem to ascertain the cause of death.’
Safety standards have been a concern on India’s state-run rail system.
Six coaches of a train derailed in northern India in August last year, killing 23 people and injuring more than 80 passengers.