bus crash

Living and dying are both dream states. It is a matter of one's consciousness shifting from one dream state to another. When the bus began to flip, I felt I was dying. When I woke up from the violent commotions, I could not remember my past as if I had entered a total new dimension into which I was just reborn. About sixty seconds (or longer) later, my memory of this life time returned...

Last week I was out of town in order to do some preliminary preparations for my students' fall travels. The day before I was to come home, I was going to make my way to the capital of the province so the next day's flight would be easy to catch.

The morning was kind of drizzly and grey, kind of cool. I set out after breakfast, waiting on the roadside with my friend. The first bus came but we saw some other people we knew approaching us, so we waited for the next bus, about 20 minutes later, and they got on with our help to load their backpacks. We saw them off and a few minutes later my bus came. My friend who was sending me off knew the driver as they were from the same village.

I got on the bus and decided to sit in the back since it was empty. I set my backpack against the window and wanted to take a nap. I didn't sleep, though, just enjoyed the scenery. A little while later the driver's relative who was collecting fares came to me so I paid my 15 or 16 Yuan. The ride was pleasant, the rain making it a kind of lazy day, quiet. We went up, crossing the big mountain pass on the way to the city. We came to a deserted gas station and there were the two travelers we'd seen off. They boarded and sat down about two seats in front of me, but they didn't see me. Oddly, they didn't have their luggage.

Shortly afterward, two monks sat down in the seat next to me - an older monk and a younger one with some vision problems. The bus got quiet again, after everyone purchased their tickets. The rain got heavier as we climbed the mountain. Eventually we came upon a junction and the two travelers I was acquainted with got off to wait for another bus that would take them toward their destination. The monks got off as well. I still wondered where their bags were. My guess is that they'd decided to get off their original bus which was standing room only, and waited for another that would take them to the next little town where they could pick up their bags which the other bus would drop off.

Next our bus descended the winding road toward the city. I noticed very nice, poetic, misty mountains and I thought of taking some pictures but my window couldn't be opened so I put my camera back. A man in his 60s was busy taking pictures with his digital camera though. I thought he might be a pretty good photographer by what I could tell caught his eye.

We had almost reached the lowlands and there were probably 15 or 20 passengers. There was a family with a child. The mother was indifferent to everything except the baby, and a grandmother was holding her grandchild. I also noticed a good looking young woman in shorts and T-shirt. She sat next to a window and fell asleep. There were also a couple of old ladies, some of whom looked kind of familiar as I've been to this region before.

I can't say I was falling asleep, but all the sudden the head of the bus went up and a lady started yelling, "Hey! The bus driver is drunk!" and before she could even finish the last word the bus started rolling over. I don't remember what happened next but my consciousness was very active - I sensed danger and felt death was coming. I thought I was going to die in a very tragic way and I was praying for at least a good rebirth. Then I thought of my life insurance. Then there were no other thoughts.

I assumed I died. There was a big long silence and then my eyes started opening. I was upright in my seat. Oh. I saw blood on my pant legs. I touched my head - oh, sticky with blood. It was a different world, I didn't really comprehend it. I thought, "How come I came to this world?" and "Why would I be reborn here, with lots of blood?" Then my ears started working again and there were people moaning and yelling - the young pretty young woman obviously had internal injuries and I felt like we were in a war zone or a movie setting. My consciousness was processing this, trying to figure it out.

I looked around, oh gosh the bus was basically destroyed: the windows were shattered with shards and hanging rubber gaskets. Passengers were unconscious. I looked out the window and the visibility wasn't very good, so I was thinking, "where is this place?" Oh, yes, I recalled a traffic accident and I remembered the moment the bus started flipping. I looked beside me and couldn't see my friend, I was afraid he'd been tossed out the window, so I tried to lift myself up and I couldn't, I looked out the window, left, no; right, no. I made myself calm down and tried to remember.... deep breath....I focused on my friend..."Ok! He didn't come with me!" What a relief! So I started to pull myself together, what day is this? where's my phone? So I found my phone in my pocket. I checked to make sure all my joints moved, found I'd lost my shoes and my glasses. I saw my glasses down on the floor, under a seat so I reached down and grabbed them - minor damage, the lenses were ok, so I put them on and got a good look.

I called home, kind of happy actually, that I'd survived - really almost heroic to be sitting upright and relatively ok. Later, Wendy said that in my phone call I said, "I'm sorry, I just had a traffic accident." She tried to figure out if I'd been personally hit by a car or what, so I told her I'd been in a bus accident but I was kind of vague I guess because she thought maybe my bus had been hit by another car.

At this point some passengers had already been taken out of the bus by passengers of another bus who happened on the scene (forget anything like ambulance service in these remote locations), so I told Wendy we were going to the hospital. I also called my assistant in Beijing because he could find somebody in the city to come and help me out.

Then I saw the fare collector and I started hollering, "Hey! I need my shoes!" He found one, but my temper was pretty short and I yelled, "I need both my shoes!" He said, "Look around, everybody's hurt!" "Except you!" I said, "I need my shoes, they're so good!" So he found a square rug and said, "let's wrap your foot up in this."

Later, I asked him how come he looked just fine while everyone else was hurt. He said that at first the bus tipped and everyone got scared and then it rolled and within that first roll, the doors flew open and he was flung out of the bus. So he saw the second revolution, watching it, and it was the second roll that destroyed the bus.

By now another bus had arrived and I found it so painful to stand up. I thought maybe I'd broken some ribs. The first bus had taken the more seriously injured passengers and I got on the second bus - very painful and I started feeling weak. Other victims were there too, including one older woman who started out very spirited but declined visibly as we drove on. The photographer was unconscious. I only saw the boy with his grandmother, he was crying and his grandmother's ear was torn.

I called my assistant and Wendy and then I called my friend who thankfully hadn't been on the bus with me. He immediately went to wait for the next bus so he could meet me at the hospital.

The bus driver dropped me off at the front gate of the hospital. Other passengers had relatives or friends waiting for them there, but I just stepped off the bus and didn't know what to do. So the bus took off and I stood there until a short, young woman walked by, very modern looking. She looked at me, paused. I looked at her, paused. She said, "Hey how come you're here?" and I remembered her and said, "Hey, how come you're here?" It turned out that she's a singer I'd met before in Beijing. Then she said, "Oh I know why you're here, look at yourself, you're a mess. My father was on the same bus. Hang on I'm going to get someone to help you." I don't remember who came to get me, but then the next thing I knew I was in the emergency room and someone was calling a doctor to see me. They checked for internal injuries, saw my head wound and did a CAT scan. I was on the phone with Wendy when they started to stitch up the gash on the top of my head (she said she could hear the crying child in the background). Then to X-Ray to check my ribs (not broken).

At this point people started showing up, a grad student from my university, my assistant's dad (who had driven an hour and half to come make sure I was ok). So then I just waited in the lobby while patients with internal injuries were treated. I chatted with the singer and her mother. They suggested I stay in the hospital for observation, which was a good idea and perfectly acceptable in Chinese hospitals (unlike in the U.S. where they send you home as soon as possible). By the time I was given a room I was so hungry which was a good sign!

My assessment, after some reflection, is that I was really fortunate due to the fact that my backpack protected me from broken glass. I could have been cut badly, but the backpack cushioned my impact. I had a few small pieces of glass in my clothes which fell out at the hospital, but nothing serious. Also, my REI fleece hat protected my head. I ended up with three stitches, but it could have been much worse. I was also lucky I hadn't fallen asleep because I was able to react quickly enough to hold on tightly as the bus flipped. That's why I wrenched my waist muscles, but at least I didn't get thrown around.

I didn't know for sure that we rolled twice until later, after my friend came to meet me in the hospital. His bus, on the way into the city, actually stopped and the bus driver let everyone off to inspect the crash site. There were some witnesses who had seen it and he even told me the bus was totalled. The fact that it tipped up first, then rolled, meant that my end of the bus stayed on the ground and it was the rear end that was the fulcrum or the hub of all the rolling, so my radius was small and other people's radius was huge.

It was definitely an awakening experience, awakening from living to dying, and from dying to living. Life becomes ever more precious after the bus crash.