Real-Life Rancho Helps Woman Deliver Baby on Train Platform

PTI, MUMBAI, OCT 16, 2025 : An alert Mumbaikar helped a woman, who went into labor in a moving local train, deliver a baby on a railway platform with the help of a doctor who guided him over a video call.

Vikas Bedre (27), a videographer, was traveling in a local train on Tuesday around 1 a.m. when a woman in the adjacent compartment went into labor as the train neared Ram Mandir station in north Mumbai. Ambika Jha (24), the woman, a resident of suburban Virar, was accompanied by her nephew and niece. What happened later was shared by an eyewitness on social media.

In an Instagram post, Manjeet Dhillon said the man noticed the woman in severe pain and immediately pulled the train’s emergency chain to stop it. “This man is truly brave—words aren’t enough to describe him. The baby was already halfway out. It truly felt like God had sent him there for a reason,” Dhillon wrote.

Bedre said he immediately called his doctor friend, Devika Deshmukh, who, after realizing the gravity of the situation, switched to a video call to guide him on how to proceed with the delivery. “He managed to get a pair of scissors from a tea stall on the platform,” the doctor told a Marathi news channel on Thursday. He also gathered some bedsheets to help prepare for the delivery, she added.

“I was very scared, but Devika’s help gave me courage. It was because of her guidance that I was able to manage the delivery,” said Bedre, who was supposed to catch a flight but stayed on to help. Both the mother and the baby boy are doing well.

A video of what happened on the platform was shared by Dhillon. It got several reactions, with some praising Bedre as a "real-life Rancho" (from the film 3 Idiots) for his quick thinking and compassion, turning the railway platform into an impromptu delivery room.

“We all tried our best — we called several doctors, but the ambulance was taking time to arrive. Finally, a female doctor guided him over a video call, and he did exactly what she instructed. His courage in that moment was beyond words,” Dhillon wrote.

The eyewitness also claimed that the woman’s family had taken her to a nearby hospital, but they were told that delivery couldn’t be done there, so they had to bring her back on the train. After the delivery, the woman's relatives took her to the civic-run Cooper Hospital in a private ambulance.

Prince Mishra (18), the woman’s nephew who was with her, said that they decided to take a local train from Virar to reach the civic-run Nair hospital after his aunt—his mother’s sister—began experiencing labor pains, and taxi drivers refused the trip, citing heavy traffic. Bedre came to their help when her condition was "slipping into danger zone," he said.

“Vikas bhai called his doctor friend, and explained the situation. He did what she asked him to do, and as per her instructions, cut the umbilical cord of the baby,” Mishra said, adding that his mother, who was at her workplace in Andheri, had also reached the spot by then.

Bedre told news agency PTI that he had taken a train from Goregaon to reach Vile Parle to collect cameras for a professional assignment before heading to the airport for a flight to Ahmedabad. After getting off at the station, they first tried to find an ambulance or a doctor, but to no avail. When he called Dr. Devika Deshmukh, the baby’s head was already out, he said.

“At this point, she told me that now you will have to become a doctor. Then she explained what to do, and I went on following her instructions,” Bedre said.