Ahmedabad: Kinal Patel, a hotel management student who died in the crash of London-bound Air India flight 171 in Ahmedabad Thursday, had last year faced a gruesome car accident, but managed to escaped with just a broken jaw, her father-in-law said.
Chandrakant Patel, Kinal’s father-in-law, told ThePrint that Kinal, 24, lived in London with her husband, and had specially flown back home by herself for follow-up medical treatment after the accident last year.
“The car accident was quite bad. The entire car was damaged. My son escaped unhurt as he was sitting in the front and the car’s airbag saved him. My daughter-in-law was sitting at the back and was sleeping. She didn’t realise what happened and took the full impact of the accident,” Patel, who lives in Ahmedabad, said.
He was at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital Friday morning, hoping to claim the body of his daughter-in-law.
Kinal, he said, had undergone plastic surgery last year for her injured jaw. The doctors had said the treatment could be fully completed only 8-10 months later as her calcium levels were low.
“She had come back from London to complete her treatment, and was here for a month. She was returning home to my son Thursday,” Patel said.
The couple, he said, had got married only last year and the family didn’t have time for a proper celebration between their move to London and the accident. “They just got the marriage registered,” he said.
Last year, Kinal had secured a spot to study hotel management at a London institute and her husband was working with a food company there, Patel said. With a glimmer of pride, he added: “She used to work there as a chef in a five-star hotel.”
Last year’s car accident occurred in Indore when the couple was on their way to Ujjain to visit a temple before their big move to London.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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