Eligi Vivir - I chose to live.

I picked up the Reader's Digest (Jan 2010) and found an article that was most amazing and very inspiring. A courageous woman named Daniela Garcia from Chile, put her life back together after a horrific accident at the age of 22 that deprived her of her limbs.

In Daniela's final months of her fourth year in medical school (a specialty degree taking nine years to complete in chile), just before exams, she got on a train with other medical student to join in on the annual Inter College Games. Not sure whether or not to go because she was concerned about an upcoming exam, the time away from her studies and the cost of the event, she also felt a gnawing apprehension about the trip but because her classmates badgered her to join for her superior soccer ability, she went along.

The games were held at a city far from Hungary. So they had to board a train. And as there was vacations in chile schools, the rush in the railways prompted the authorities to use the old coaches from yard to meet up the rush. Looking at some non-functioning lights and the dust-covered windows, Daniela again felt that something wrong is going to happen. Something like gut feeling or intuition.

Asked by friends to join their walk to the other coaches to see who else came on board was going to change Daniela's life forever. As the train curved around a corner, a gap opened up wide on the walkway that joined the coaches. With the overhead lights burnt out and the darkened night, Daniela lost her footing and fell between the coaches and straight on the railway tracks. The steel planks covering the walkway between coaches were entirely missing.

Tugged from side to side, she found herself lying in the middle of the tracks on a farmer's field with a small house. She tried to feel her forehead with her hands, but felt nothing, then she tried to move and stand up and a terrible pain shot through her body. That was when she realized that something was wrong. And what she saw terrified her. She had lost both her hands, and when she tried to stand up, she got another shock, and her legs too were amputated.

Terrified that another train would come and despite massive injuries and pain, she was able to roll off the track. Not being able to move any further, she began to yell for help. A farmer named Ricardo, was enjoying his evening cigarette  during a walk in the cold night air as his wife wouldn’t let her smoke at home heard Daniela and went for help. By the time the paramedics were on the scene of the accident, a pack of wild dogs were hovering close by threatening Daniela even further. Losing an astonishing amount of blood and with such massive injuries, they didn't have much hope for her.

As the paramedics tied her to the spine board and bundled her up for taking her to ambulance, another train was coming on the adjoining tracks. The paramedics feared and fled keeping Daniela between the both railway tracks. She told them to come back soon, but the train seemed to be never ending.

She constantly asked just one question to all the paramedics, doctors and everyone. “Am I going to be alright?”. And when a doctor told her “you are going to be just fine”, she fought back death and her injuries with great confidence.

After a three hour operation and a two day drug-induced coma Daniela awoke asking if they could 'fix' her. To deal with her phantom pain (Which are thousands nerve sensations concentrated at the end of the amputated limb) and sensations from her severed limbs, like the stabbing of nails, she began meditation and reiki, a Japanese-based therapy that aims to manipulate the body's energy fields. Then came extensive rehabilitation everyday for the next six weeks from 9 until 4 at the Moss Rehabilitation University just outside of Philadelphia.

Despite losing her four limbs and refusing to let her disabilities hold her back or without given special treatment, she re-entered medical school just a year after her accident. With her renewed focus and commitment, she recieved even higher marks than before and became the world's first quadrilateral-amputee physician. Her strength, balance and determination predicted her recovery.

"She remarked to her mother how odd it was that something so bad could bring such good things, how out of sadness she could then experience such joy... For Daniela, while the moments on the train track were the worst of her life, paradoxically, with each of her milestones in recovery came some of the strongest emotions of happiness she had ever experienced"

Today Daniela is a household name in chile. Her autobiographical book “Eligi Vivir” (I chose to live) is the best-seller non-fiction book in Chile. She is also a successful rehabilitation physician despite all the challenges she faced. She finds it easier to connect with her patients as she knows their mental state. Sometimes she gets flat-on-face questions from her small kid patients like “Why do you have hooks instead of hands?”, and “why do you limp when walking?”, and she answers them all with a smile.

She rides the bicycle even today with her boyfriend, which she loved to do before the accident.

The story is so inspiring that we can almost achieve anything once we’re determined to. The distractions and obstacles we face while pursuing our goal are dwarfs compared to what Daniela faced. And her herculean effort in overcoming the tragedy is just awesome.

From Desktop

Daniela along with the doctors at the Moss Rehabilitation center, Philadelphia, USA