@2003, Baroda
It was a calm morning and as usual, I was returning home after completing my night shift at the Amtel office, riding my silver-colored kinetic honda. I had just passed the Bhartiya Vidhya Bhavan school, when out-of-blue I saw a black stray dog, trying to cross the road. I didn’t slow the speed, thinking, it would steer away from my path, but it was the wrong decision. The front wheel just touched the dog and in an instant, I was thrown off balance. My knees hit the road hard. I didn’t feel any pain that time. The people on the walkway tried to help me stand, but suddenly my knees buckled. It was a strange sensation, my knees wouldn’t hold straight although my mind instructed it. It was like some disconnection between my brain and the right leg. A good samaritan offered to take me home on my kinetic honda. Mom was preparing breakfast. She saw me from the kitchen window. Without showing any panic, I gently said “I met with an accident”. As I tried to stand from the scooter, again my knees buckled, and I couldn’t stand. The good samaritan helped me get into the house. And that was the last time, I saw him. May God bless him abundantly.
It was not my first accident though. An year or two back, when my brother and I were returning home after the church service, at Basil school, I had an head-on collision with a bike.
On the way to GIDC/Makarpura from Old Padra road, there is an area where the garbages are burned. To get away from the smoke and stench, I put on full throttle. Suddenly, I saw a small pothole in the middle of the road. To avoid hitting it, I swerved a bit to the right. At that very moment, out of blue, I hit a speeding bike from the opposite direction. I became unconscious and my brother was thrown a few feet away. Fortunately, he was conscious.
Miraculously at that time, an ambulance was passing by. Seeing me and my brother on the road, the driver stopped and decided to take us home. On the way, it stopped at a clinic. After seeing me unconscious, the doctor pronounced me dead. The driver called up my home and said, one of your sons is dead. But on the way home, I regained consciousness. I was the first one to get off the ambulance. Thank God for His protection.
History was repeating itself. Mom called our neighbor next door. Dad was not in the town as he was posted on a company project, I think he was in Calcutta. Our good neighbor, Uthup uncle, took me in their car to an Orthopaedic hospital, near to DonBosco school. The doctor – Padam Gupta, was my schoolmate’s brother.
Since it was early morning, the doctor had not arrived yet. He was informed about my accident. As soon as he arrived, they took an X-ray and it clearly showed the knee damage. The pus was removed from my knee, using a big syringe needle, to prevent it from flowing into the bloodstream. I hate injections and the sight of the needle itself made me cringeful.
When the MRI was done, it showed extensive damage to my ACL ligament. The doctors performed a keyhole surgery. They inserted 3 titanium screws to fix my ligament. After about two weeks, I was discharged. And I took another month off from the office.
After almost 2 months of rest, I decided to go office in an auto-rickshaw. On the way to the office, I would visit a physiotherapist and do some exercises. In the morning, the same auto driver would pick me up from the office and drop me home. This became a normal routine. Slowly, my condition improved. I progressed from using crutches, walkers, and canes to walking independently on my own albeit with a small limp. And gradually the limp also left. I thank God for His protection. From that time onwards, I gave up riding the bike.
