The sole survivor of a plane crash in India has recounted rare memories of the tragic accident.
Soon after news broke that an Air India flight had crashed in Ahmedabad, videos began circulating on social media showing a man walking away from the crash site with his shirt covered in blood.
It was later discovered that there was one survivor: a British citizen of Indian origin, identified by the Hindustan Times as Vishwash Kumar Ramesh.
Ramesh said he had been visiting family and was returning to the UK with his brother, who was sitting in a different row.
Air India later confirmed that of the 242 people on board the flight, 241 had died, leaving Ramesh as the sole survivor.
When asked by reporters what Ramesh remembered about the crash, Dr Rajnish Patel, professor and head of the department of surgery at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, said Ramesh may have suffered from “post-traumatic amnesia”.
“He was like that. He couldn't tell me the whole sequence of events. He said there was a lot of noise. There was a moment when he was unconscious. And then when he got up, he saw dead bodies all around him,” Dr Patel said.
According to Dr Patel, the sole survivor of the tragic plane crash in Ahmedabad is in a “not too critical” condition and could be discharged in the next few days.
“He is being treated well and is not in a critical condition. He has some bleeding, but he is not too badly injured. He is comfortable and under close observation, there are no problems,” the doctor added.
The doctor said that Ramesh could be discharged “within a day or two”, noting that there are some patient protocols and legal issues that need to be resolved first.
Ramesh's family spoke to him from his hospital bed and he said he was “fine”.
In an interview at the hospital where he is being treated, Ramesh recalled his rare memories of the crash.
“Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so fast,” Ramesh recalled.
“When I stood up, there were bodies all around me. I stood up and ran. There was debris all around me. Someone put me in an ambulance and took me to the hospital,” Ramesh added.
“He told us he was in the crashed plane, but at first no one believed him,” a hospital official told the Telegraph.
“He looked like a man who had just walked out of a fire,” the hospital official said of Ramesh.
Indian news outlets shared a photo of Ramesh's boarding pass, showing him sitting in seat 11A of the plane, in the emergency exit row, just in front of the left wing of the plane.
“He doesn't know how he survived. He was in shock. He was bleeding. All he remembers is that there was fire everywhere,” a cousin of Ramesh shared after the conversation.
Another cousin of Ramesh also said the man “has no idea” how he escaped from the plane.
“We were shocked when we heard the news. The last time I spoke to him was yesterday morning. We are devastated, really devastated. He said, ‘I don't know how I got out of the plane,'” Ramesh's relatives added.
Vidhi Chaudhary, a senior police officer in Ahmedabad, said Ramesh “was near the emergency exit and managed to escape by jumping out of the emergency exit.”
Experts say Ramesh's survival in the plane crash was a miracle.