Aashka’s(kumud) highway horror

Parents' anniversary

Aashka sustained multiple fractures on her left arm, and needed several stitches in her mouth. She was on the way to hometown Ahmedabad to be with her parents — they were celebrating their wedding anniversary on Saturday.

The actress was travelling in her Accent Viva, along with three friends — Vinita, Arun and Krishna (her Mumbai flatmate). Her driver was at the wheel at the time of the crash.

Couldn't speak

When hitList called Aashka on Saturday, she was still in shock, in terrible pain and unable to talk. We contacted her again on Sunday evening, when she was slightly better. Initially, the actress was not too keen to talk about the accident. Later, she said, "It has been a night of horror for me. All I can say is that Allah has been great. He saved my life, as well as of the others."

She says it all happened in a flash of a second. "We suddenly found our car thrown on the other side of the road and in a shambles, below the trailer. We managed to step out of the vehicle, and for the next 10 to 15 minutes, sat on the highway in a state of utter shock. All the passersby wondered how we had survived the accident. The car was a tangled mess; it is totally gone."

Too much air in tyres

The mishap happened a little after 9 pm, on Friday. Aashka had left Mumbai that evening, at around 5 pm. "We had stopped at a Valsad petrol pump for a refuel. There the driver also filled air in the tyres. As there was no attendant, he did it himself.

In fact, the air metre was not working properly, and I told him to stop after he had filled air in the three tyres. I also told him he should not have filled the tyres again — before we had left Mumbai, everything had been checked. I had this wary feeling about the tyres — that they were overfilled."

After the brief halt, Aashka continued with her journey. "I was sitting in the front seat, while my friends were in the back. We had driven for about 20 minutes, and were at an area called Dharampur Chowky, when two of the tyres burst. Before we could react, the third tyre burst, too. The driver totally lost control of the vehicle.

The car went over the dividers, to the other side of the road, and rammed an oncoming trailer. It was all so sudden. Suddenly, we felt pain and there was blood. Somehow, we managed to get out of the car."

Flatmate badly hurt

Besides Aashka's multiple fractures and mouth injury, her flatmate, Krishna, too, is in bad shape. "She suffered the most; she was unconscious, has broken her ribs and is still in hospital." However, the driver and her two other friends did not suffer any injury.

Cops arrived in 15 min

Immediately after the accident, one of her friends dialled the emergency number displayed at vantage points along the highway.

"The cops and ambulance arrived in about 15 minutes, and we were taken to a hospital at Valsad. Later, my father arrived and we were all taken to Ahmedabad. It was an ordeal and we still can't get over it. We are thankful to be alive. Luckily, the car was not in top speed; otherwise the impact would have been worse."

Aashka is slated to return to Mumbai from Ahmedabad on February 8.