The heroics of Yenkappa, a 28-year-old groundnut farmer from the Jammanakatti village in the Bagalkot district of Karnataka, saved over 100 houses from certain destruction after he drove a burning tractor into a lake, according to this report in the Times of India.
It was just another day for Yenkappa, who was transporting a 30-feet stack of hay on his tractor until it, unfortunately, came into contact with an electric wire overhead. As a result, the pile of hay caught fire, which began to spread.
Seeing sparks fly and the bale of hay catching fire, other residents, rushed out and tried to put out the fire with water filled in their vessels.
Considering he was driving through a narrow lane in his village flanked by houses on either side, matters could have escalated to tragic proportions. Yenkappa knew he had a tiny window of time to do something about the situation, and pressed his foot down hard onto the accelerator driving the tractor into a lake straight ahead for 500 metres away from the cluster of homes.
Just before the burning tractor hit the lake, Yenkappa jumped out to safety suffering injuries on the way, as per reports. Locals had recorded this entire incident on their mobile phones.
“I could have escaped to safety, but the tractor would have destroyed several homes and shattered families. I just had to act, and I did,” said the heroic farmer, in a conversation with Times of India.
With the fire doused, the damaged tractor was soon pulled out of the lake with the help of an earthmover from a nearby village. “The incident happened in less than 20 minutes. One mistake would have landed the whole village into trouble, [and] we would have lost houses and livestock. What Yenkappa did was extraordinary,” said another resident of the village to the daily publication.
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Yenkappa incurred a loss of Rs 30,000 due to the damaged tractor and, accordingly, has reached out to the local tehsildar and MLA for financial assistance.
You can watch the video below:
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
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