 He
left me there to die
July 04, 2001
This
is a true story. Cecilia was only 15 when she was flung off the
back of a motorbike. The driver, a friend, rode off and left her
lying on the road in a pool of blood.
By
Kwok Kar Peng
Cecilia
is a young 24 year-old woman making her way in a fast-paced Singapore
society. Young, vibrant and confident, there's only 1 thing wrong
with the picture: the accident 9 years ago that changed her life
a full cycle and left her in a coma and half paralysed.
The night he left her to die
Like
most teenagers then, Cecilia was a 15 year-old whose favourite haunts
include tea parties at Dreams and Fire discos.
Those
days of being wild and free ended the night she rode pillion on
her friend's motorcycle.
He
was 18, and didn't have a driving license.
They
were cruising down Nicholl Highway when the accident happened. He
escaped with some light injuries.
She
on the other hand, was flung off the bike and landed hard on the
road.
While
she laid unconscious in a pool of blood, he took off with her belongings
and left her there.
"The
doctor said I'd never be able to walk again."
Cecilia
lost so much blood that she required a transfusion of 8 packets
of blood. Two operations were performed: 1 to remove the blood clots,
and the second a plastic surgery to repair her broken skull.
When
she woke up from her coma a month later, she had lost most of her
memory.
"I
didn't know who I was, and where I was. I could recognise my parents
and slowly my friends too, though I couldn't remember their names
or how we met. The right side of my brain is injured, resulting
in my left side of the body paralysed, and my speech slurred.
"The
doctor told us I'd never be able to walk again. I'd have to spend
the rest of my life in a wheelchair."
>> Revenge and Justice
The struggle to recovery
"When
I woke up from the coma and saw myself in the mirror, I thought,
how I could have become like this? I brought this upon myself when
I took the wrong step. I have to accept who I am now.
"From
then, I told myself I must think before I do anything; is it worth
it?"
After
Cecilia was discharged from the hospital, she found there were a
lot of things that she could no longer do. Those that she could,
came with a lot of difficulty and she wanted to end her life.
She
was wheelchair-bound for the first half a year. She tried walking
in shoes that had metal supports but those hurt her legs and she
couldn't walk well in them. She then discarded those for a walking
stick.
Every
morning, her parents would take her out for walks and slowly, just
one year after the accident, she defied the doctors' diagnosis and
was walking without help again.
She
also joined the Association for the Disabled where she took voice
therapy and learnt to take care of herself.
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>>
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