Doctor stuck in traffic does the unexpected to get to hospital in time for critical surgery

Doctors often sacrifice their schedules and pastimes to care for their patients, but one Bengaluru doctor went above and beyond. On August 30, 2022, Dr. Govind Nandakumar, a gastroenterology surgeon at Manipal Hospital, made an ingenious decision to save a patient’s life when he was stuck in an unexpected Bengaluru traffic jam, reported The New Indian Express.

Hailed as “India’s Silicon Valley,” the city of Bengaluru regularly grapples with the issue of traffic congestion, exacerbated by poor infrastructure and waterlogging caused by heavy rains. A 2017 study by Ola Cabs revealed that Bengaluru has the slowest pace of traffic among the major Indian cities. Plus, as per the Delhi Statistical Handbook 2023, Bengaluru is one of the most congested Indian cities with the highest number of private cars, exceeding even Delhi’s count. Although with recent measures like the “double-decker flyover,” the government is putting efforts to ease the traffic from the city’s bottlenecks, the worsening traffic jams cause much anxiety to people who have to commute daily to work.

On that day, Dr. Govind was on the way to perform surgery when a massive traffic jam deterred him from reaching the hospital on time. He was already behind his schedule according to which, he was to conduct an urgent laparoscopic gallbladder surgery on a female patient. “The last stretch usually takes 10 mins. I was stuck in the traffic, getting nervous about being late. I checked Google Maps which showed that it will take another 45 minutes,” he said.

When he realized that this delay could pose a risk to the life of his patient, he quickly came up with an idea. Leaving the driver to guard the car, he disembarked from the vehicle and hastened his way, sprinting his way to the hospital, to reach the patient on time. “I have a driver, so, I was able to leave the car behind. It was easy for me to run because I gym regularly. I ran three kilometers to the hospital, and was in time for the surgery,” he revealed.

When Times of India reporters later asked him what was going through his mind while he was racing to the hospital, he said, “To get to the patient as soon as possible and perform the surgery on time. Patient’s wellness was the only thing on my mind.” When the doctor arrived at the hospital, his astute team had already induced anesthesia on the patient. The surgery was successful and the patient was discharged on time. He even took to X and posted a 5-second clip of his run-of-the-lifetime. In his post, he tagged government officials, bringing the grave traffic issue to their attention.

Speaking to NDTV, he described that he commuted almost every day from central Bengaluru to Manipal Hospitals, Sarjapur, in the Southeast of Bengaluru. “Thankfully the right side of the road had what you may call on the footpath. Thankfully there was no traffic at that end of the road. That helped me a lot. So I had a free roadway to run across. Of course, I had to make sure that there were no gaps in the road.” 

This is not the first time the doctor has intelligently faced the challenges of his profession. “I have faced a similar situation in Hebbal a couple of times and have taken the skywalk to reach the hospital on time,” he said, adding, “I have had to make the journey on foot a few times in other areas of Bengaluru too, sometimes crossing railway lines.”

Furthermore, he expressed his concern over the worsening traffic situation in Bengaluru, saying that not all hospitals have ample facilities to wait for doctors who get stuck in traffic. The patients end up suffering the consequences. Plus, “what if a patient in an ambulance is stuck in traffic,” he said, perturbed. Given the congested traffic scenario and poorly designed infrastructure, he had to do what he did. It was his only option. “Sometimes you got to do what you got to do,” the doctor wrote in his post on Instagram, where he was lauded for his quick-thinking.