Getting Hit By a Car Was The Best Thing That Happened To Me
Here's how I came back from the dead on Halloween
TRIGGER WARNING: I talk about a motor accident, internal injuries, and suicidal thoughts.
There I was lying sideways on the wrong side of the road.
Staring through my helmet at the white car heading straight for me. When I tell this story, people ask me what went through my mind right before I got hit by a car. If my life flashed by. If there were a profound moment. If time stood still. I must admit, I experienced great clarity about my situation right before impact. I said to myself,
“Holy shit! I’m Fucked!”
And then I closed my eyes.
I lived in Goa at the time, an Indian state known for its beautiful beaches and tropical vacation vibe. I had just bought a scooter and was excited that I could finally explore all parts of Goa.
October 31st, 2020 was shaping up to be a great day.
I was going to Arambol beach for my weekly Artist Date. I was on week 6 of Julia Cameron’s bestseller, The Artist’s Way, and one of the two key pillars of this book was The Artist Date; which is a date for your inner artist. The idea was to nurture and spoil the inner artist to spark greater creativity.
At the time every gallery and museum was closed during the pandemic. Going to a different beach each week became my favorite version of this date. I would love to walk around the beach, do some people-watching, and then sit in the sand to reconnect with nature.
At 10 am on that day, I got on my scooter and was on my way to the beach which was a 30-minute ride away.
About 5 minutes in, the worst thing imaginable happened.
I was going at roughly 40 km/h and was close to the car in front of me. When I sped up to pass the car, it slowed down abruptly, and I was forced to course correct. This made my scooter swerve and I lost control. The scooter skidded sideways and I found myself lying on the opposite side of the two-lane street.
There was a car speeding towards me with no time to avoid it.
I thought this was it and closed my eyes. I did not see what happened next but there was a very strong collision and was thrown violently in the opposite direction. I felt my body rolling several times before coming to a halt.
I was still conscious.
I got up screaming. My entire body was in shock and shaking with adrenaline. I also had this strong suffocating sensation around my diaphragm and was not able to breathe freely. Several people came to help and someone even called the ambulance. Some of them were eagerly waiting to beat the crap out of the driver but I said it was not his fault and asked them to let him go.
Someone called an ambulance but it was roughly 45 minutes away. India is famous for a lot of things but sadly not for its emergency response.
When the shock and the adrenaline subsided, I was able to stand up with some help. A kind gentleman suggested that I should not wait for the ambulance and get to a hospital ASAP and helped me get in a rickshaw.
Hospital Roulette
I was super grateful for the rickshaw driver who was empathetic about my severe pain and navigated the bumpy roads with care. He dropped me off at the first of three hospitals: Dukhle Hospital. Translating literally to Take Pain.
I was in the waiting room alone sitting in excruciating pain for about an hour. The hospital was short on staff and it was a very busy day. I kept telling them I couldn’t breathe and I was making involuntary sounds because of the pain.
But everyone waits in the waiting room.
Finally, the technician had an opening and they took me in for x-rays. Fifteen minutes later the emergency doctor saw the x-rays in said that I had broken several ribs and both shoulders in a nonchalant way. And then he asked me to come back on Thursday when their orthopedic surgeon comes in.
There was no way I could wait till Thursday.
It is often very difficult for me to ask for help but I am thankful that one of my dad’s best friends lived in Goa. I was in constant contact with Shyam uncle and he assured me that I would be fine and that his son Shreyas was coming to get me as soon as he could. He picked me up from Dukhle and took me to Hospital number two: Vision Hospital.
This was a better hospital with better equipment but they were also overwhelmed with patients. After waiting for several hours they were able to perform a ct scan. They saw the scans and confirmed that I had broken 12 ribs, my clavicle, and both shoulders. The junior doctor gave me painkillers and he was also leaning toward sending me home.
I’m glad that a more experienced doc looked at my chart and recommended that I get admitted. They moved me to a comfortable room. After settling in, I managed to go to the bathroom with great discomfort and that’s when I noticed a significant amount of blood.
I’m So Negative
They decided to move me to the ICU for overnight observation. They performed more scans and tests and concluded that I was bleeding internally.
The ICU doctor relayed this information to me and said that I would need blood transfusions if my hemoglobin levels kept dropping. I nodded as if he needed my consent.
He also mentioned that my blood type was O -ve, which was rare, and that they did not have any at the hospital.
He suggested The best thing in this situation would be to move to the Government hospital the next morning; hospital number 3: Goa Medical College. My parents were still in Mumbai and the earliest flight they could get was landing the next afternoon. My sister was in Toronto and doing her best. Constantly asking if she should come there immediately and communicating with the ICU doctors.
When I told the doctors that it would be a while before my immediate family shows up, they decided to transport me to the next hospital in an ambulance van accompanied by a nurse.
Lucky to be Alive
I got to Goa Medical College and my parents were anxiously waiting for me.
I was rolled into the casualty room. There were hundreds of people waiting to be seen. It seemed impossible to get a doctor’s attention without a long wait, but my mom was able to hand over my chart to one of the surgeons on call, Dr. Pratik Savant.
I owe him my life.
He saw the chart and immediately assessed the urgency of the situation. My spleen was ruptured and bleeding out. They had to do an emergency splenectomy to stop the bleeding. They had me prepped for surgery within an hour.
Before the surgery, they sent over a guy to shave my abdomen and my nether regions. Without making eye contact I told him that this was the most action I have had in months. He wasn’t amused. Tough crowd.
While I was going in, the doctors told my parents, that they will do their best but they can’t guarantee anything. My chance of survival was 50/50. I also had an eerie feeling that this could possibly be the end of the road. As they were wheeling me in, I made peace with this. Before going under, I looked up at my doctors, gave them a big thumbs up, and said,
“Good Luck!”
The next thing I remember was waking up briefly after the surgery in the ICU. I couldn’t see clearly and I was bound to the bed. I noticed that I was having difficulty breathing.
The breathing tube that was attached to my mouth had fallen off.
I tried screaming out to someone but I had no voice. I tried moving my hands but nothing moved. I was still groggy from the anesthesia. In my mind, once again I had resigned to my fate but in my body this very strong will to survive kicked in.
I refused to die in a hospital bed that night.
I could still move my head, so I started shaking my head vigorously from side to side. Finally, someone noticed and reconnected the tube to my mouth. This person looked like an illuminated guardian spirit while I was still under the influence.
One of the surgeons who operated on me stopped by the next morning. He said that I had lost about two litres of blood and that I was very very lucky to be alive.
No shit! I came close to dying twice in 48 hours, barely avoided puncturing both lungs, and was extremely fortunate to avoid damage to any other vital organs.
The Best Thing That Happened To Me
I am very grateful to be able to write this story today.
A lot had to go right for me to be alive. The man who advised me to get to the hospital before the ambulance arrived, the helmet, the rickshaw driver, my friend Shreyas, my loving parents who were there when I needed them the most, their neighbor who helped them book their flight tickets, my sister who called dozens of donors in Goa to find O -ve blood, the complete strangers who came forward to donate blood, the guy who shaved my balls, the amazing doctors at GMC, the nurses and the support staff. Everything was like clockwork.
This accident was the best thing to ever happen to me because it completely changed my perception of myself and life itself.
Body Acceptance
I had internalized a very strong sense of self-hate over the years and I’ve hated my body and the way it looked for most of my life. But It was this body that was resilient at a time when I most needed it. Despite being run over, this body carried me and I still could walk straight. Despite almost dying, this body miraculously recovered within two months. Going through this helped me accept and even fall in love with my body.
It showed me how strong I really am.
Self-hate and Lupus
Another symptom of chronic self-hate was Lupus, a disease where my own immune system was attacking the body. Before the accident, I had tested positive for Lupus every 6 months since 2017 and I was resigned to the fact that I will have to live with this disease all my life. Week 6 of The Artist’s Way was about abundance. One of the exercises was to allow abundance to come into our lives.
The night before the accident, I set an intention to allow healing to come into my life.
Six months after the accident, I got tested for Lupus again. I tested negative for the first time ever.
Removing the spleen had eased off the immune system and I did not test positive anymore.
Wanting to Live Again
Over the years I have been working through depressive episodes for several years. Even the night before the accident, I saw some suicidal imagery as I was falling asleep. These kinds of images and passing thoughts of not wanting to be alive were a constant fixture in my life for over a year. It was only when I faced my mortality as a very immediate possibility, that I realized that I definitely wanted to live and see how this movie plays out.
I’ll end this with this perfect quote said by Naval Ravikant on JRE 1309
Thank you so much for reading. If you enjoyed reading this story, be sure to share it with friends and family. I also publish weekly content that helps you reconnect with your inner self through my podcast and newsletter, Heal with Sushil. You can join the mailing list by going here.
What a powerful story Sushil and so beautifully written! You even managed to insert some humor. I literally laughed out loud in regards to that 'getting action' comment.