Cat food, Christmas presents and Capoeira
I was on my way home in Ft Greene, Brooklyn with a bag full of cat food and Christmas presents. A week later I was meant to be flying back to Australia for Christmas for the first time in five or so years. I would always go back in August but hadn’t for Christmas in a long time. I had my cousins from Adelaide coming to stay to look after my cat, thus the cat food, and the presents were for my friends’ kids. I got off the bus and walked to the corner. I waited for the light to change to green and when it did I did a quick look over my shoulder to see if anything was turning and I didn’t see anyone. I was across one lane and into the second lane of the two lane one way road when I was hit by a semi-tractor trailer. I was hit on my left hip and I spun around on my right leg and went between the wheels. I don’t remember having my face sliced open but I have a memory of lying on the damp road with nothing around me. It was just after 5pm but it was winter in Brooklyn and so it was already dark. The driver didn’t see me. He had to be flagged down at the next set of lights. When I arrived at Bellevue Hospital I was a 15 on the Glasgow Coma Scale which means my cognitive functions weren’t impaired in any way. I was able to read the name of one of the doctors when she showed me her ID. I have a memory of this but I don’t remember anything else of the trauma slot apart from a bump when the ambulance enters the ambulance bay. I felt that on my way out too.
After a six-hour emergency surgery I was taken to the ICU. One of my friends who I was meant to be meeting that night was there and she said I was yellow as well as swollen. The color shocked her the most. I was put in an induced coma for a day but I was taken out by the Saturday. People came in to visit. One friend had run into another friend on the bus on his way there and so she came with him. A couple of other friends were there talking about picking up my parents from the airport later that day. As I used phone cards to call home my parents’ numbers weren’t in my contacts. My brother’s number was there and so the hospital called him. He passed along my mum and my dad’s numbers and so they were the next to be called. One of my childhood friends booked flights for them and they didn’t get an update from the hospital before taking on a 24 hour plane flight so they didn’t even know if I’d made it. My friends were there at the airport and they were taken straight to see me. The oral and maxillofacial surgeons were there and told them there was no brain damage and no spinal cord damage and the rest they would fix.
I was at a Halloween party a month or so before the accident and I was talking to a friend who is an ICU nurse. I’d asked her about what helped people survive, if anything. She said there wasn’t always rhyme or reason. Someone could be surrounded by family and friends and die, and someone could be all alone and they get through. I’m not sure what drove my line of questioning but I think it was to do with “toxic happiness” where people’s level of “happiness” is seen as what gets them through. If only you think positive you’ll be ok! In my case that was true a lot of the time but that’s not what made the difference. I spun around on my right leg to go between the wheels of the truck. My right knee has mild chronic swelling and there is some tightness around the knee cap. When I was hit it was my first semester free of Master’s classes in about four years. This meant I was back at capoeira on a regular basis and I might have taking other dance classes as well. I’d started volunteering with a group who took inner city youth hiking and other outdoor activities. The week before the accident I’d been at the Capoeira Angola Center of Mestre Joao Grande (then on 14th St @6th) for the Sunday roda and midway I went uptown for a meeting with the outdoor ed group and then came back to the academy. I played a beautiful last game with a friend and left that day feeling uplifted and inspired. A few days later I was hit.
After some people from the capoeira center visited me in the ICU my Mum went there and met Mestre and some others. When she came back she said she saw how I evaded the wheels of the truck. I’d been thinking that to myself but hadn’t said it aloud. When I was hit I spun away and was saved. I went back to the academy not too long after I was back home in Brooklyn from rehab. I played percussion and sang but I couldn’t play in the roda. Being there always felt like a form of home to me. Whenever I came back from Australia I’d go to the academy and feel comforted among the people there. It’s a place of healing in so many ways.
