A villager, who was among the group of people who first reached the helicopter crash site at Kattari Park in Tamil Nadu's Coonoor, on Thursday said that Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, was alive when they found him and was asking for water.
Talking to media persons at Coonoor, Sivakumar said: "We reached the spot immediately after the crash and found three people alive and of them, one was asking for water. We didn't have water but we immediately put the three of them on separate blankets and took them to the Wellington Army hospital."
He, however said that he did not know that it was General Rawat and could only identify him when the photographs of the late officer came out. Sivakumar, Krishna Moorthy, and M. Ravikumar were the first people to reach the spot on hearing the crash, only to find the copter burning.
Ambulance carrying remains of crash victims meet with accident
Meanwhile, one of the ambulances and a police van, part of the convoy carrying the bodies of the Indian Air Force (IAF) chopper crash victims, met with an accident while on the way from Wellington to Sulur in Tamil Nadu.
Thirteen people, including Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat died in an IAF helicopter crash near Coonoor on Wednesday afternoon.
The bodies were shifted from the Madras Regimental Centre (MRC) in Wellington from the Military Hospital on Thursday morning where Telangana Governor and Puducherry Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, Air Chief Marshal V.R. Chaudhari, senior military officials and others paid last respects to the departed souls.
While the convoy of ambulances and security vehicles were travelling from Wellington to Sulur air base, the axle of a police vehicle broke. The van driver stopped the vehicle and in the process hit a wall on the roadside.
Seven policemen suffered minor injuries and they were shifted to Mettupalayam government hospital. Some minutes later, one of the ambulances carrying the mortal remains met with a minor accident suffering small damages.
The bodies in the ambulance were shifted to another ambulance and the vehicles proceeded towards Sulur airbase.
