CIRCLES OF LIFE

\=The Accident\=

I was only six years old, when I fell into coma as a result of the fatal accident which occurred on my birthday.

I was left with just my mom, who was like the only surviving person in the damaged car.

I stayed in coma for years, everyone lost hope and thought I was going to die, because of how lifeless I looked.

Even the doctor couldn’t say much about my condition.

All he kept saying was that I was suffering from traumatic brain injury as a result of the accident.

Mum still had faith in me, that one day I would definitely wake up.

She prayed every moment when she was with me, asking God that why didn’t he take her instead.

It was like the whole world had crumbled on her.

But I bet you, you wouldn’t see that sadness in her face, because she always tries to put up a smile of hope.

I didn’t know what gave her such faith in me. Every other person who would have been in her shoes, would have lost hope already.

It’s six years now since I had been in coma. Even the doctors have lost hope in as much as they did their best.

But no result yielded. The doctor advised they flew me abroad for treatment, because they were lacking in many facilities needed to treat me- both in their hospital and other Nigerian hospitals.

And this would cost much for my mom. Especially, because it’s just like booking a personal flight for me since I would need to be transported comfortably without shifting the oxygen away from my mouth; which if mistakenly done would cost my life.

Before the accident occurred, when we were all at home, mom suggested that dad celebrate the birthday at home.

Unfortunately, dad didn’t support that, because he felt we’ve been doing that right from time. He wanted something different. I was happy though, that at last I would celebrate my birthday somewhere else.

My dad had four nice cars in his garage: Land Cruiser, Bentley, Range Rover and Benz. We took the Land Cruiser not because it was large enough to contain the six of us, but because my dad wanted us to ride on that one.

We took off that day and drove through the express way, while driving we stopped through several traffic light, without any issue.

The last one we stopped at, before reaching our destination was terrifying.

My dad held his break waiting for the one minute count down before traffic light turns green to take off.

The count was finally over, but my dad wasted a little time before releasing the break.

The truck driver who was few distance behind us, (I don’t know if he was actually drunk that day, or if he was just too impatient to wait for my dad’s car to take off first) all of a sudden ran us over with full force.

Our car summersaulted three times and almost fell into the water under the bridge.

Instead, it fell sideways of the bridge and made another turn, dropping us with full force upside down.

At that moment there was already a pool of blood flowing on the road, my dad’s face was no longer recognised because it had already been smashed on the steering by then. Kenneth, the eldest of my brothers, had his head outside the car.

And the remaining part of his body squeezed inside the car. Fred’s own was the worst of all, while the car was summersaulting, the door which he sat close to, opened.

This made him to land on the floor with his face on the tarred road and blood spilling out of his head and other parts of his body brutally wounded.

The youngest of my brothers, favour; died almost same way with my dad. Except that his legs had almost chopped of by them. While all this happened it caused holdup on the road. People were rushing out of their vehicles to see what had happened, some tried to offer help, checking if there were any still alive in the damaged car.

Some cried in pain, not knowing what to do, some others snapped the incident, while others ordered an ambulance.

I wished I could turn back the hands of time, but it was already too late, because both dad and my brothers were already gone.

The truck driver did not even bother stopping to help, instead he zoomed off without turning back.

When the ambulance finally came, they brought out my mom and me, who were the only survivors of the accident.

We were rushed immediately to the hospital.

My mom was not badly injured, she only had few cuts on her body, which they patched with bandage and prescribed few medicines for her. It didn’t take more than two weeks for her to recover. But my case was critical; I had internal bleeding, several operations were taken so as to sustain me and stop the bleeding.

The operation was a success though, but soon after I fell into coma.

Mom was still in a confused state as to what the doctor said about flying me abroad. So many questions began to pop in her head: how could she possibly do that? Who would assist her in travelling, how possibly would it be to transport this almost lifeless body? Could she possibly do that without shifting the oxygen? She’s neither a medical practitioner nor an expert to go through all that.

She kept looking into the eyes of the doctor, like she was going to voice it out.

The doctor understood her thought and told her to calm down, that they would assign one of their professionals to go along with her.

She sighed in relief, thanked the doctor and, hoped for everything to go well.