18th January 1998

A mother's love that knew no bounds

By Tharuka Dissanaike

Ivan Hettiarachchi does not believe in fate. But the tragedy of that terrible Saturday has made him question his own beliefs. In what started off as any normal weekend, he lost his wife and almost lost his daughter in a shocking train accident that rocked the heart of Negombo town last week.

Noeline Hettiarachchi, anyone who knows her would be quick to say, was a good mother. At that moment when the speeding train was coming down the track directly at her daughter who was crossing, her maternal instincts overpowered sense and she grabbed the child only to be killed instantly by the impact of the train. Eight year old Shevanthi, at the time of writing had still not regained consciousness at the Accident Ward of the National Hospital. She survived the accident because when the train hit them, her mother was cradling Shevanthi, shielding the little girl's body with her own.

"Shevanthi was saved because of her mother," Ivan said. He looks over at his fifteen year old son. "Our daughter was born eight years after the son. So my wife was very protective of her. There was a great bond between mother and daughter."

It may have been her fondness for the little daughter that made Noeline agree to pick her up from school, when on a normal day the child would travel to and from school by van.

That Saturday, Shevanthi's school, Ave Maria Convent, a few hundred yards from their home on Main Street Negombo had extra classes and in the morning the girl left home in the van. But according to others in the school van, Shevanthi made her mother promise that she would come in the afternoon to pick her up from school. "I want to walk back from school, we haven't done that for a long time," she had pleaded with the mother until Noeline agreed. In the morning Ivan drove to Colombo, promising his wife to be back early afternoon so that they could do their week's marketing. When he came home, his wife and daughter had still not returned. At 1.30pm, when they still had not shown up, he began to panic and was stepping out of the house to check on them, when a motorcycle messenger brought him the terrible news. His wife had died trying to save their daughter from the train.

According to Ivan, the short cut across an unprotected railway crossing is used by many school children. This place connects two parallel roads and to avoid the inconvenience of walking upto the main road and crossing at the protected level crossing, school children and people living around there use this short cut. There are several dangers in crossing at this spot, one being that the track takes a turn so that the train approaching the station from Puttalam, will be unseen until it is virtually upon the place. Another is that, as it is very close to the railway station the train neutralises the engines and one would not hear the chugging of the engine till it is almost on you. Every month there are several close calls at this very spot, a garage owner whose shop is located by the rail track said.

Mahesh Senerath, an electrical technician who was attending to a car by the roadside was eyewitness to the entire incident. He had seen the girl, shake off her mother's hand and run across the rail track behind several others. He had seen the train approaching. Mahesh then hollered at the child, 'Train, train.' At this the mother in a frenzy had rushed across the track and picked the girl up but she did not have enough time to get to safety. The train had hit her on a side and dragged the mother and child a couple of yards before they fell in a heap by the side of the railway. Noeline was already dead, a severe injury to her head, the girl alive but suffering a skull fracture, a piece of skull being lodged in her brain. She is still recuperating from surgery.

This crossing should just be closed down, it's too dangerous, another garage owner said.

But even last week's accident had apparently not deterred people from crossing at this precarious place. Especially since it has become a habit to so many school children, it's obvious that railway and municipal authorities must look into the problem of this unsafe crossing.

Ivan, now is solely concerned of his daughter's recovery. For him, talk of safety on the crossing has little meaning. He maintains that his wife was a very careful and level headed person who rarely took risks like this on a level crossing. If only, he seemed to think, there was no school on that Saturday, if only the child had come by van, if only they had used the main road.......

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