The accident occurred around 5.30 am according to police, when Pant's car hit the divider of the road and flipped over before catching fire. He was driving towards his hometown Roorkee in Uttarakhand from Delhi.

"I am a driver with Haryana Roadways, Panipat depot," Kumar told Hindustan Times. "Our bus left Haridwar at 4.25 in the morning. I was on my way when I saw a car being driven at a lot of speed get off balance and crash into the divider. After the impact, the car landed on the wrong side of the road - the one that goes to Delhi. The car had screeched onto the second lane of the road, seeing which I immediately applied the brakes. The car had already caught sparks so I and the conductor rushed to get him out of the car. By then the fire has started. Then, three more people came running and got him on a safe side.

"I called the National Highway, no one answered. Then I rang up the police and the conductor called for an ambulance. We kept asking him he is he fine. Offered him some water. After regrouping, he told us he is Rishabh Pant. I don't follow cricket so I didn't know who he was but my conductor [Paramjeet] then told me 'Sushil... he is an India cricketer'.

"He gave us his mother's number. We called her but her phone was switched off. The ambulance arrived after 15 minutes and we got in him … I asked him if he was alone in the car. He said there is no one."

Pant was initially taken to a local hospital - Saksham Hospital Multispecialty and Trauma Centre - where he was treated for impact injuries before being moved to the Max Hospital in Dehradun.