An ambulance with a patient inside was asked to stop for over 20 minutes in the middle of its journey on Friday, January 23, due to the ongoing Pune Grand Tour Cycle Race. Videos have now gone viral on the internet, showcasing the carelessness of the administration towards public health and emergencies.
Videos were learned to be recorded by a pedestrian claiming that the ambulance was held for 20 minutes on Prabhat Road due to the cycling race, which is a part of Pune Grand Tour Cycle Race 2026, where star cyclist Luke Mudgway of New Zealand won.
To conduct the Pune Grand Tour Cycle event, the administration had installed barricades and closed several roads, and a traffic advisory for the same was issued earlier by the Pune Traffic Police. However, citizens faced a tough day commuting through several routes.
Coming back to the ambulance case, an X user claimed that an ambulance was held for up to 20 minutes on Prabhat Road due to the event. He said, "Beautifying streets while letting innocent die does not make an event a success!"
Tanging the video to the UCI account, which hosted the event, said, "Please think twice before giving #Pune or #India any international event. The common man suffers when basic emergency care services aren’t planned! We will never know if the patient made it after a huge delay!"
When an X user asked the video poster about the health update of the patient in the stuck ambulance, he said, "Last update - the 🚑 was allowed to pass after public pressure, multiple calls by citizens to the control room, etc. This was after nearly 30mins. The cyclists arrived after another 30mins. No idea about the patient. All we can do is hope and pray."