THE DAY I ALMOST DIED

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THE TIME I ALMOST DIED. It was 1993 and I was working for a sugar company in Thailand. Enjoy xx

Have you ever seen a dead person? Well, I have and without further ado, let me supply the astonishing tale regarding my second smooch with the angel of death. It occurred in the mid-nineties when I was doing a spot of work at a sugar factory in Khampheang Phet in Northern Thailand. This city is famous for its historical park and small oval-shaped bananas. On the day in question, I had a ticket for the front seat on the early morning express bus to Bangkok. Each weekend I would embark on the five-hour journey to the capital city to visit Eric Jay, my two-year-old son. Even though his mother and I had separated, my strong paternal instinct and deep love for my first-born meant that giving this weekly journey a miss was a non-starter.

I couldn’t relax in the front seat to the left of the driver; something just didn’t feel quite right. A strange sensation inside kept prodding me to move away from this spot. Was it my sub-consciousness or was it a supernatural message from my guardian angel? I will never know. The tropical storm was chucking itself against the windscreen as a cheery Thai pop song played on the radio. My inner-being continued screaming, “Get out of this seat.”

I was keeping everything crossed that the bus would not fill up, so I could obey my gut-reaction and get the hell out of this seat. I was on a knife-edge counting the soaked-to-the-skin passengers stepping onto the bus. It was raining snakes and lizards here in the land of smiles. The hostess got on next, spotlessly dressed in her smart bus-company uniform. A royal blue jacket, skirt and hat, crisp white blouse and highly polished black shoes. She had been ushered to the bus by a colleague holding a brolly, so besides a few wet splashes on her shoes, she was relatively dry. I would estimate that she was about 25 years old. Her shiny shoulder-length hair matched her demeanour, which sparkled with happiness. I managed to catch her eye and asked if I could possibly change my seat. She gave me a beautiful warm smile, studied her notes and led me to a place on the right, half-way down the bus. I thanked her, and she laughed, “You are welcome.” I was able to relax my God-given arse in my new seat now that the alarm bells in my brain had stopped ringing.

The half-empty bus pulled away in the heavy rain. A middle-aged man was now sitting in the very seat that had given me bad vibrations. I considered warning him but of course, I didn’t. What could I say? Your seat is dangerous? Your seat is haunted? He would have thought the foreigner was off his blinking head. The pretty hostess continued smiling and laughing as she handed out bottles of drinking water and face wipes to the passengers. I attempted to fathom the reason for her happiness. Had she recently fallen head over heels in love, so she was walking on cloud nine, wearing rose-coloured specs? Could she be dreaming about her young son or daughter’s birthday party later that evening? Or was it the dinner she would be sharing with her devoted parents tomorrow? This young lady radiated with the joys of life and it was infectious. I felt happy too and was pleased that I had contemplated another person’s life. Most of the time we only focus on me, me, me, imagining that the universe revolves only around our precious selves. We rarely wish to know anything about another person unless they are of benefit to us; usually sexually, financially or to boost our ego in some way. I find that so sad.

The rain was belting down as we sped along the highway towards the city of angels. I perused the sports pages of yesterday’s Bangkok Post before yawning. I was feeling the effects of last night’s beer. We were only about 45 minutes into the journey when I eased back into my seat and closed my drowsy eyes. Pictures of a pizza with my boy that I had planned for later today, played in my mind before I fell asleep. I was unexpectedly jolted from my cat-nap by frantic shouting and screaming, coming from the front of the bus. I instantly jumped up in alarm and gripped the back of the seat in front of me tightly. There was an almighty bang as we hit a truck, then everything went into slow-motion as the bus left the road. I thought to myself, “This is the day that I die.”

Still in slow motion, we bounced down a slope and came to a halt in a waterlogged field. I looked out of the window and was stunned to witness the bus driver running away in slow motion. It was like an action replay from a televised football match. However, his face was not lit up in pride after scoring a goal; it was white with shock as he looked back in horror at the carnage he had caused. It was surreal, just like an edge-of-your-seat scene from an old black and white Hitchcock film. My focus returned to inside the bus, which was filled with hysterical screams and desperate cries for help from the front. I checked myself over and was gobsmacked to find that I was injury- free, as was a young lad who was sitting nearby. We just gazed at each other in astonishment before shrugging our shoulders and nervously smiling. I had lost a shoe but nevertheless managed to open the emergency door at the back and step out into the field. I walked in the rain to the front of the bus and noticed the young hostess lying on her back crying, “Jep, Jep, Jep.” (I am in pain.) It was obvious that she had flown through the windscreen. A shiver ran down my spine when I spotted that the front left-hand side of the bus was completely destroyed. This must have been the spot that impacted with the truck. Shit, that was where I was supposed to be sitting, I shuddered. An old man who was tightly holding a baby was pacing up and down frantically crying, “He isn’t breathing,” but refused to release the child to anyone.

In the chaos, I sprinted up the slope to the highway and frantically waved down a pick-up truck. With the driver and the young lad, we managed to get about eight injured people in the back including the hostess and the man with the baby. The driver put his foot down and continuously beeped the horn until we arrived at the nearest hospital five minutes later. I jumped out and placed an injured woman on a trolley bed and quickly wheeled her into the hospital. Once the doctors and nurses saw the seriousness of the situation, they informed me that this was just a small village hospital and that they didn’t have the facilities to deal with it. We would have to drive another 15 kilometres to the main hospital. We carefully placed the injured woman back in the pick-up and raced down the highway.

The doctors and nurses were there at the ready. The smaller hospital must have phoned them. The injured were speedily transferred into the hospital. I stayed with the hostess, who was still breathing but in a lot of pain. After being mesmerised by her joie de vivre plus my reflection on the possible reasons for her high-spirited attitude, I felt a deep connection to this girl. And not to forget, she was the angel who led me away from the death seat. I really wanted a happy ending for this lady. I sat outside the room where the doctor and nurses were treating her. I could hear her continuous low groan of “Jep Jep Jep.” I clenched my fists tightly and whispered, “Come on girl, you can do it.” Then suddenly, there was steely cold silence.

My heart sank as I stood up and walked straight into the tiny cream room and asked the doctor about the hostess. He remembered that I had accompanied her when she arrived and gently replied, “I’m very sorry, she is dead.” He pointed to a body on a bed about a metre to my left. I had never seen a dead body before. As soon as I looked, I knew that it wasn’t her. The sparkling energy, the laughter, the dreams, the smiles, the love and the joy I had witnessed just a couple of hours earlier weren’t there. On the hospital bed was a slab of lifeless meat and it wasn’t her. She had left already. My inner being had one last word with me that day. I was told that the physical body is nothing more than a suit and that the real being is the invisible energy which lives eternally; moving on after the physical body has died.

I thanked the doctor and slowly left his room to sit outside alone. I softly sobbed as I recalled the three words, she had spoken to me, “You are welcome.” And those words had saved my life here on Planet Earth. In fact, I am weeping now as I write. Visiting the past can be very painful can’t it?

From my recollections, out of the 16 passengers, seven died, including the hostess and the small baby, and seven were badly injured. Just the young lad and I were injury-free. I was interviewed by a TV reporter. He asked me if I had any amulets, which most Thais wear around their necks for good luck. I replied, “No, all I have is a bit of wood on a piece of string that I got from Phu Kradueng National Park.” I pulled it from under my shirt and everyone gazed in wonder at my lucky bit of wood.

The sugar factory manager collected me and gave me a lift to Bangkok. I was in deep shock of course. I hugged my son and took him out for a pizza. As I lay in bed that night I reflected on the day’s events. Firstly, I thought about the happy hostess and how her hopes and dreams were snatched away by a stupid driving error. Her partner, children, parents, grandparents, friends and relatives would all now be crying and suffering terrible grief, which would last for weeks, months or even years. Then, the little baby who had hardly started his life. He would never go to school, learn to ride a bike, fall in love or have children of his own. His mum and dad would be distraught. My heart went out to them all.

And what of me? Moving my seat had saved my life but had killed another. If I hadn’t had moved, he couldn’t have sat there and may have chosen a place further down the bus. At first, I had a pang of guilt but then realised that the bus only had 16 passengers and that he was free to sit in any section of the bus. It was his fate to elect for a seat at the front. That was his decision, not mine. I was still confused as to why I had such a strong feeling to change my seat. I had sat in the front seat of buses many times before. Why did I get the heebie-jeebies this time? I don’t know and probably never will know. One thing I do know is that life is fleeting and very fragile. All it takes is one fatal error or being in the wrong place at the wrong time and it is over.

I suppose the answer is to live with love, compassion and kindness and try to experience as much as possible of this magical world without harming others. The only certainty is that you will die one day, so make the most of it while you still can.

Back at my office, I was offered serious money for my lucky piece of wood, but I refused to sell it. The shock of that incident affected me greatly and I avoided travelling by bus whenever possible, and the times I had no alternative I would be a bag of nerves staring out of the front window. It took me over a year to feel safe on a bus again and of course, I never sat at the front.

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