The Bike Ambulance Dada

After his mother died for want of an ambulance, a tea-garden worker turned his motorcycle into a lifeline for villagers with no other way to reach a hospital.

Karimul Haque is a tea-garden worker from the Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal. In 1995 he searched for a way to get his gravely ill mother to a hospital, but no ambulance could be found in time, and she died at home. He vowed that no one around him should ever die that way again.

The idea for his answer came when a fellow worker collapsed in the fields and no ambulance could reach him. Haque tied the man to his back, seated him on his motorcycle and rode him to hospital, where he recovered. From that day, Haque's bike became an ambulance.

Fitting it with basic first-aid supplies, he began ferrying the sick from remote villages to medical care, often free of charge and at any hour of the day or night. Across the surrounding villages he became known simply as Ambulance Dada — Ambulance Brother.

Over the years he has carried many patients across rough rural roads to reach help, driven by the memory of the mother he could not save. In 2017 the Government of India honoured Karimul Haque with the Padma Shri for his selfless service.