This incident happened three decades ago but had created a
phobia that will affect me for life.
It took place when I was working in a semi exclusive resort
complex which could only be accessed by authorized utility and private vehicles
with resort stickers and guests’ cars with confirmed reservations. Hence, if you miss the schedule of the employee’s
shuttle going in and out of the more than thirty hectares premises, means of
transport is difficult unless you have your own car.
It was the last hotel employees’ shuttle bus trip for day
shift workforce which was scheduled to leave at 6:30PM and the mini bus is
almost full. The hotel where we worked
is just one of the facilities within the complex, which also includes a
membership club house, two separate beach fronts, residential low rise condos and villas, golf courses and
nature and mountains along the background.
Our bus had to pass a stretch of elevated roads along mountain side on
the way out of the resort premises going to the town proper where most
employees reside. We were almost on the
outskirts of the resort approaching plain land when we noticed that our bus was
rapidly gaining instead of decreasing speed while going down the slope.
I was setting behind the driver and sensed something was amiss so I hold on to my set and in a split second heard a loud crash and felt
a shaking of our bus and then pandemonium broke loose. Passengers are scrambling out of the bus and
I heard shouting all around. I also
clambered out of the bus and once outside, I noticed my left arm dangling and
likewise feel wet all over. It was then
that I realized that I am bathed with blood coming from the abrasions on my head and face caused by
broken glasses and oozing from a wound just below my left shoulder. People came to my assistance and minutes
later my major wounds had been bandaged by pieces of thorn shirts of my co
employees to stop the flow of blood.
They then laid me in an improvised stretcher, entered into a car and rushed to a nearby hospital.
It was while on the way to the hospital that
I started feeling the excruciating pain and once I was brought inside I
requested the first attendant for a painkiller.
I think they gave this to me promptly while they are cleaning my wounds
for I start feeling numbness creeping my whole body easing the terrible
pain. A few minutes later I was again
carried into the car and rushed to a bigger hospital in the city due to
incomplete facilities in that small hospital. This time I recognized our
company doctor (who immediately came to assist upon learning of the accident)
taking charge for although I was a bit muzzy, but, I had not lost consciousness
completely. The taking over of numbness
over pain had helped and I was fervently praying to the Lord for mercy and
asking Him to let me live for my eldest son who was only an infant then.
I lost total consciousness while being treated at the hospital in the Metropolis. I woke
up in the ICU the next day finding my whole left arm in cast and my head, face and
upper body in bandages and feeling great pain particularly on my left upper part. I was told by my doctors that I was very
lucky to have survived. They got several
splinters of glass that entered my body and a couple of pieces according to
them were just barely an inch from a lung and my heart. They told me that I am already out of danger but still need to
undergo a major operation due to the broken bone of my left arm. My left arm was operated two weeks later and my doctors allowed me to check out after a week to recuperate
at home.
I was required to report to the hospital every week for close observation on the development of my
operated left arm and also of the deep wound beside my left armpit which
had not totally healed yet. My whole
arm except my hands was in plaster cast and it was uncomfortable and difficult
to move and painful too at times. This
had been my plight for a couple of months and I can’t even take care of my son. What’s more frustrating was the result of
examinations of my left arm after the 2nd month which revealed a
negative development. The damaged bone
did not heal as expected hence I had to undergo another operation again and
this time a bone grafting was done. They
took a portion from my hipbone and according to what had been explained to me
this was placed between the broken bones on my left arm so that it would join
and heal. This second operation was more
painful than the first for the pains which on the first was mostly felt on the
upper part now affect my whole body and a little movement from any part of
my body would produce a pain that really made me cry. I stayed in the hospital again for another two
weeks.
This time I had a
continuous recuperation and felt the slow but sure improvement of my left arm. After the operated bone had healed it took me
again another two months of physical therapy to help my left arm and fingers
move again. The capacity however had
been unlike before and it took me almost a year before I could be able to use
it normally again but capability is not as before. I was supposed to undergo another operation
a year later after complete recovery to remove the metal support placed on the
bone of my left arm but the pains I had suffered had scared me of undergoing
any operation again. Hence, until today
the metal support is still inside enveloping my upper left arm bone
and with God’s grace, this has not created any discomfort.
Now years after, my left arm had completely recovered and
functions normally as if nothing happened.
Only the visible scars showed the traces of what I had gone through. That accident however had a lifelong effect
that I think I will not be able to get over anymore, and that is, my phobia for
fast running vehicles and also even for sea and land transport. Whenever
I’m on board a fast vehicle I can’t help getting jittery and would rather
prefer to get off and find another means to reach my destination. Before the accident, I love fast travel but
now my travel motto is “Better delayed but arrive safe than go fast and assume risk.”
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