A trip that changed my life. We were on our way back from my grandmother’s service, and I was drifting off to my usual long drive nap. Nothing was out of the ordinary, with the obvious exception of the funeral.
Clothes covered in red, shattered glass all around, my aunt in a pool of blood and my sister lying paralyzed. I woke up from a dream into a nightmare. Havoc was all around. I remember sitting in a toppled car which had attracted the locals, but I did not hear a single sound. I climbed my way out of the car. I remember saying to myself “this too shall pass” before I jumped into action.
I slapped the screaming driver and tasked him to collect and look after the luggage which was all over the highway road. After that I called for an ambulance on 108 which is for emergency disaster management. I worked on keeping the crowd at bay because sometimes a rabble can do more harm than good. I remember seeing a couple of the locals clicking pictures of us in torn clothes not even sparing my deceased aunt (which I later found out). After that I made some other necessary calls (to the local relatives, to a doctor friend who stayed minutes away and also my dad).
In times like this I think the time perception gets really distorted. I can’t say how long but it felt like seconds before the ambulance arrived. The EMTs (emergency medical technicians) helped my paralyzed sister into the ambulance. To my dismay they informed me of my aunt’s demise and refused to carry her into the ambulance. I didn’t pay any heed to their judgement and started struggling to get her onto the stretcher. Minutes later all three of us were at the hospital.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." I remember thinking for months end as to what I could have done differently, if there was anything that could have prevented this from happening or maybe saved my aunt. I asked every wise person I could get a hold of and asked what they would have done. I was so terrified of this happening again. But life really does go on. Here I am doing my MBA after learning a lot about myself from this incident. My ability to stay clam in tough situations, to thinking rationally, to thinking in multiple dimensions. All this I wouldn’t have known if I wasn’t dealing with this horror alone. So, to answer your question I am closer to my dream after I understood the value of a life-changing second.