You only die once

Chapter 3 Luck strikes trice!

Chapter 3

Luck strikes trice!

Nearly dying twice seems a lot. But there was a third time.

This occurred between my near-drowning and my near-stroke.

It was early in the very sunny afternoon. Here in the tropics, we had the odd rain shower that lasted for half an hour every other day. That was how it was 40 years ago. But as our town became a city, the midday weather changed. Nowadays, these rain showers hardly occur. Clouds may pass but they do not unload their rain as before. Trees became scarce in town and the temperature rose as our town became a concrete jungle.

I was riding my small motorcycle after school. Here in the East in those days, the usual motorcycle was only 60 – 70cc. Not the Triumph of the West with 200 – 300cc. They were called the Honda cubs. Maybe 'cub' meaning small. As usual, I left school alone, wearing my helmet and goggles over my spectacles. The dust was too much for me and the goggles really helped. I passed by the petrol station along the whole row of cars that was snailing along. Traffic was bad every day. Roads in those days were narrow and allowed one car at a time. On a motorcycle, we would always pass the slow cars between the road edge and the row of cars. I was passing the old cemetery at a reasonable speed when suddenly a cream-coloured van pulled out of the queue and cut out in front of me. There was nowhere to go. Within a spilt second I hit the van, catapulted across the small drain, and in a blur, a white wall was the last thing I saw.

I drifted in and out of consciousness. I remember someone calling me. I couldn't move. Then I think I was in the ambulance as I heard sirens. It was like being held asleep in a dream and you could hear calls but just could not wake up. Then I was out again.

I regained consciousness a few hours later. I was in a hospital ward. The ward was full of people. I couldn't recognise anyone. No familiar faces. Soon, I gathered my thoughts and was aware of a splitting headache and pain in my left ribs. Moving my left arm made my ribs hurt.

I was in hospital for three days. X-rays showed a rib fracture. There were no skull fractures. They diagnosed concussion. In those days, CT scan wasn't invented yet. Diagnoses were mainly all clinical, meaning it was deduced from what facts could be gathered and an examination of the patient. No fancy tests. A plain X-ray was considered quite sophisticated.

It was related to me that I had hit the old cemetery's two-metre white wall head first. The irony of it. A cemetery. Not just a cemetery. The old heritage cemetery. I nearly met a lot of dead people. I was unconscious and fell into the drain. As luck would have it, it had not rained and the drain was dry. Passers-by, who included some schoolmates, hauled me up. An ambulance came and delivered me to the hospital.

After my discharge, I found my red helmet. The spot on the wall that I hit had cracked with cracks fissuring out in all directions for three to four inches. The impact must have been fairly serious. I was lucky that the helmet probably saved my life. Only a few years preceding was helmet-wearing passed as a safety law.

This brush with death was unexpected and different. I was merely a passenger. I had no decisions to make as with my near-stroke. I was not in any power to change its outcomes, like in my near-drowning experience trying to float to the surface. A series of events that lead to an ending. For me, luck was on my side and I survived. Many ifs exist. If the law hadn't been passed, I would not be wearing a helmet. Hitting a brick wall with my skull alone wouldn't give me much of a chance, would it? If it had rained like many midday showers, the drain would have filled up and I could have well drowned, going into it unconscious. Or if I hadn't passed my motorcycle licence or my parents couldn't afford the motorcycle, the accident would not have happened.

Sometimes, we are passengers in life. Events unfold. Things happen. We can regret this and that. But in reality, there is little we can do about it.

This was different from my two other brushes with death. This had no warning and no decisions that I could make. I was totally not in control.