A real life experience - The fall & Miracle escape

Not many people can say that they have survived a 25 foot fall without a scratch on them. I can. There is nothing great about the fact though. I fell because I was stubborn and stupid and did not want to listen to anyone, especially my grandma. My Grandma lived in a farmhouse that was in the middle of a vast orchard. I lived with her for three years, from the age six to nine. Both my parents were working in different countries and they could not take me along with them. It was a small neighborhood where we lived, everybody knew everybody. And I was one of the naughtiest kids in the area.



It was just another normal day .A fine summer day, a day nobody likes to remember, because of all the fear, anxiety and worry it caused. I was eight years old. As usual, I went to school and came back. Milk and cookies were waiting for me on the kitchen table. After I freshened up, I went to the barn where the annual cleaning was going on, during which the whole farm and all the buildings in it were scrubbed, uncontaminated and dusted thoroughly. My aunt and uncle, both in college at the time, were home for the vacations. They were also working along with the farmhands. The shed, which housed the cattle, had a huge chimney, around 25 feet tall. I never really understood the purpose of it. It was built in a special way unlike the other chimneys. Instead of the smoke coming out from its top, it came out from it sides. The top was built as a platform which held a cement water tank. It looked like a tree, with a long trunk, whose canopy covered all its branches. To give an estimate of the size of the tank, it was 1/8th the size of a standard swimming pool, with 10 inch thick walls. My uncle was planning to clean it out. So they took a big brass container and placed it directly under the pipe to catch the water already in the tank. My uncle took out the ladder and put it alongside the chimney wall and climbed up. Suddenly, I had the urge to climb the ladder too. I was used to climbing trees and I was as good as my uncle in climbing a ladder. My Grandma did not want me to. She said, “Sneh, you just took a bath, for goodness’ sake. You’ll get dirty. Or worse you’ll hurt yourself. ” Other than that, nobody said anything. I said, “Don’t worry Grandma, I’ll be fine,” and climbed up after my uncle. I was so excited, thrilled and overjoyed about being on one of the highest points in whole neighborhood. Everything looked different from up there, everything looked small, obviously, but it was also so unlike from seeing things at ground level. It was one of the most adventurous things I had ever done in my life. In retrospect, it was utter foolhardiness on my part to climb up after my uncle. And everyone agrees with me.



My uncle had already let the extra water out. I got on the platform and then climbed into the empty tank. The view of the farm from up there was beautiful. I had never been this high before. I felt as if I had conquered Mt. Everest! I looked down and saw my Grandma who was looking very worried, my aunt and the workers, all smiling and waving at me and I saw the big brass pot, which looked like a huge gaping hole in the earth from where I stood. My uncle was busy cleaning scum. I wanted to sit on the tank wall. So I pushed myself up to the wall edge. That was the last thing I remember doing. Next, what I heard was crying. I opened my eyes and saw that I was lying on my bed. I saw aunt standing over me. She was very pale. She almost fainted when she saw me open my eyes. I looked around and saw half the neighborhood standing teary eyed around my bed. It was exactly like a scene in the movies where a comatose patient wakes up to find his family standing expectantly around his bed. My aunt was trying to change my clothes, because I had somehow gotten wet. When I realized what my aunt was trying to do, I resisted because so many people were staring at me. I had no clue what was going on or how I had reached my bed from a chimney. I asked, “What‘s happening? How did I get it here?”



The fact that I was capable of speaking, produce a relief in the whole room. The feeling was almost tangible. They started speaking randomly which only heightened my confusion. I heard things like:



“Oh thank God, she’s ok! Thank God!”



“Why doesn’t she remember what happened? Uh-oh, she’s got amnesia!”



“Check for fractures.”



“Don’t move her! What if she’s got her internal injuries?”



“I hope she’s going to be fine.”



“Why did she have to climb that wretched thing? I should not have let her!”



“Please, God! Don’t let anything happen to her!”



Then I realized that the noise that brought me around was my grandmother, who was wailing, that her baby had died. I was so shocked when I heard her, and in all my disorientation, I asked, “Who died?” and I heard someone say, “Oh no!”



What happened was that I fell. Instead of sitting on the edge of the tank, I fell, 25 feet, backwards onto the ground. At least ten people saw me falling. I fell just two inches from the brass pot. The left side of my body hit the ground first. My grandmother went into a shock and started screaming so loudly that the whole neighborhood came to see what happened. I was unconscious. They carried me to house, where I woke up saw and the terrified faces.



After I was changed into fresh clothes my uncle came into the room and carried me to the car and took me to the hospital. My grandmother was in no state to come along and she was left to the care of my neighbors. At the hospital they ran numerous tests to make sure that I did not have any concussion or internal bleeding. Every test was normal. I did not have even a scratch on me. Nothing whatsoever indicated that I had just fallen from a chimney. Those who saw me fall had said that I had “floated down like a feather” and touched the ground gently, instead of a full body impact. The doctors couldn’t believe it and my family couldn’t believe it. It was nothing but a miracle. The doctors wanted to keep me under observation, just in case. By this time my grandma had calmed down enough to come and see me. I still remember, she walked into my hospital room, gathered me close and whispered, “I thought I had lost you.” She said that watching me fall from the chimney was the scariest and most helpless moments in her life. I reassured her that I was just fine and that was really sorry for not listening to her. She just held me more tightly and silently cried.



I was stuck there for two days .I was happy for an excuse for not going to school, but a person could only do so much in a small and sterile hospital room. The only thing I could see from window was the construction of the new hospital wing. I discovered that the number of tiles on my room’s floor was 74, that hospital porridge was one of the tastiest things I ever had (much against popular conviction) and that kids get a teddy bear if they have been good patients. I got one too. I still have mine! All in all, when the doctors pronounced me fit to go home, I was glad.



When I came home, I heard all sorts rumors, regarding my fall, were circulating in our small town. In one, it was reported that I had died, another, that I had broken my neck, injured my spine and was now paralyzed. Slowly the news spread that I was home and every one came to visit me. They wanted me tell them exactly what happened. I told them I lost my consciousness. I don’t know how it happened or why. I remember trying to sit on the edge of the tank and then opening my eyes in my room. My grandma said that I could’ve fallen head first or I could’ve hit the brass pot or I could’ve hit the platform before hitting the ground. Thankfully, none of which happened. Thinking of all those possibilities still gives me the chills.



This fall is one my life’s turning point. I could have died that day because of mere stupidity, which thankfully did not happen. It certainly changed me. I became religious in every sense an eight year old can be. I got solid proof that God existed and that He watched over me. I became more careful and cautious of my surroundings. I learnt that being disobedient can cost me my life and as a result hardly ever disobeyed anyone. I especially never disobeyed my Grandma again. I quit climbing. I did not have a choice in the matter as I developed alto-phobia, a fear of heights. Simply watching someone climb a ladder can scare the heck out of me now. Maybe it is psychological or maybe it is a higher power influencing me so that I will not get into another scrap like that. When I think about it, I actually stopped doing something because of something I don’t even remember! I find that funny. But then, life is funny

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