- Prashadi, Part I: Exposed Bones
- August 9, 2008 Filed under: Friends, Girls Helping Girls, People, Prashadi, transportation
I’d like to tell you about Prashadi.
In February of 2006, eight-year-old Prashadi, her mother, and father were traveling together on a motorcycle near where they live in southern Colombo when they were hit head-on by a drunk lorry driver. Mind you, a lorry is a big truck. It’s not often when one crosses a center divide. But when one does and it meets the light, almost insignificant metal of a typical Sri Lanka motorbike, it will always win.
Having been driving immediately behind the motorcycle with some friends and colleagues, we not only witnessed the horrific accident but we also were the first to assist the seriously injured family. The little girl and her father were unconscious–lumps on the street–and appeared very near death, with major lacerations and broken bones. Prashadi, whose head rested awkwardly on the road and twisted over her shoulder, looked to have a broken neck. On her hands and knees, Prashadi’s mother appeared to fare better, but was clearly in shock. After I learned she kept repeating “Where’s my gold chain?”
The scene quickly grew into chaos and violence, when a mob began attacking the lorry driver and his passenger, and swarming the street around the accident. It was soon clear no ambulance could get through the crowd to the injured. The only things I can clearly remember as I was carrying Prashadi to a nearby van was the pure, pearly whiteness of the bones of her shattered shin and her regaining consciousness with a groan as the van’s sliding door slammed shut.
Then she was gone.
During the following two weeks, I hunted for Prashadi with some friends at various hospitals, before knowing her name. I couldn’t get over what may have happened to her and felt connected to her like we sometimes connect to dreams. Some dreams stay with you for a long, long time.
All of us who were there feared this brief life was over. The death of a young girl is not an unusual loss in Sri Lanka to be sure–and that’s hard for me to get my head around too–but it was a new loss for me. Or at least it would have been if we hadn’t found her.
Alive. Badly injured, but alive.
To be continued…
