FACES OF DEATH

twisted fate

If you are a reasonably sane person, you would have cringed at this photo, like me; wondering, ‘What happened to the driver? There’s nothing left of the driver compartment!’

The last time I saw a wreck like this, it was the freak accident of Ben Holioake (a budding British test cricketer) in Australia. His Porsche was in more or less the same condition; after having slammed into a wall at breakneck speed. In this case I don’t know what happened, but it looks like a tornado ran through it.

Ben Holioake rammed this car into a wall at breakneck speed

The case of Ben Holioake was a classic case of how media cloaks such incidents. The wreckage of the car was shown; it was announced curtly that Ben was killed while his girlfriend who was with him in the car was in ‘critical’ condition. And then a smiling Ben was shown in a photo. Nothing on what actually happened to the guy, or how bad a shape the girl was in.

Media print or electronic, is a strange entity. It proclaims itself to be objective and not biased; yet we all know how ‘true’ that claim is, especially when it comes to American media moguls. Whether it is independent or government-controlled; in a third world or otherwise, in the end, it is just another money-minting industry.

In fact if we are to believe the movie ‘Wag the Dog’, Gulf War never even happened. All the images shown on CNN were shot in the Hollywood studios and then leaked to the media who duly obliged. But that’s going too far; it’s not that bad, but it has yet to define a definite role for itself, even after all these centuries.

Objective reporting is there alright, but many a time when it shouldn’t be. The case at hand is proof enough. Everyday thousands of people become victims of man’s most cherished invention; the wheel. Like every wonder of science, it is a double-edged sword as well. And how does it get reported? “A young man was hit by a speeding minibus and died on the spot. An old man was killed in a hit-and-run incident.”

The best they can do is : “A three year old was crushed under the wheels of a speeding tanker.” Even if a nuclear missile was to hit the city, the style of reporting would be just as passive. And we, as callous and indifferent as we are, just go through these cold reports like they happened in a faraway land.

Okay maybe you cannot dramatize each and every accident, but wouldn’t it be better if there came out a special feature on the subject at least once a month covering the human impact of the issue; the impact of the loss on the victims’ families, but most importantly what exactly happened to these people?

I’m not sure about others, but the level of ignorance of our nation is incredible. For us, the most horrible death you can have is to be blown apart by a bomb. Car accidents for us are literally a piece of cake. Who taught us that? Movies, who else? The media factor is there all along.

Most of us grew up watching absurd fender benders on the boob tube where road accidents mean minor head injuries courtesy a bang on the steering wheel if you are inside the vehicle, or getting thrown 20 feet away if you happen to be the passer-by. If worse comes to worst, driver can go anaemic or die an unbelievably peaceful death. The same concession is not given to the victim on the street for whom a little less comfortable death is reserved.

How do we know that? The Indian cinema (and now Star Plus) where the victim gets to be literally camouflaged in ‘ketchup’ irrespective of how many injuries he suffers. In each case, the body remains intact; it may get burnt beyond recognition but not a single limb dare move an inch, let alone be severed.

I happened to confront conflicting reality at an early age when a kid in my school got in such an accident. When I was living in the UAE, near my apartment an incident happened where a man was crushed to death by some heavy object which fell on him while he was passing by an under-construction site. Now this kid from school visited his friend who happened to live near this site. Probably out of curiosity, he went to see the scene of accident, only to be trampled by a speeding dumbass on the service road, just like that.

He remained in intensive care for a good deal of time undergoing major surgeries. When he did come back to school, he was literally unrecognizable. It’s hard to explain what he had become. His face looked like it was made up of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, only that the pieces didn’t fit together completely, giving a distorted image. That’s what he had become, a crude jigsaw puzzle in a matter of seconds for no fault of his.

Whenever I caught sight of him in the assembly (he wasn’t in my class), I cringed reflexively.

Now you know why I didn’t major in Medicine after having opted for biology earlier in my career and doing quite well at it. A faint heart, you might say, when it comes to such gory stuff, a la ‘Munna Bhai in the Hindi movie Munna Bhai MBBS. Anyway, I hope with the advances in surgical techniques today, that guy gets his face back on track.

This was the first time I had come to face with the ‘behind-the-scenes’ factor of car accidents and it really got to me, at least for the time being.

Shortly after that we returned to Pakistan and I once again lost in touch with reality. Stomach churning accidents continued to take place even here, but I couldn’t care less, until a distant relative’s daughter got minced under the wheels of one of Karachi University’s shuttles while alighting from it. There was a furore over it all over the city as usual, but this time around some of the commotion spilled into our house as well owing to the distant connection. I was again faced with the human aspect of it; the real tragedy behind an almost common occurrence. The right side cerebellum went into high gear, but this time, sparking of the analytical left side counterpart was making an appearance as well. Courtesy this interference, my very first thoughts were how could such an absurd accident happen? With no knowledge of the laws of physics at that time, I couldn’t piece together the scene of the crime in my mind. Not that I can do it even now after being acquainted with physics for a good 8 years. I mean how could you fall off the shuttle and then be killed by it. At best, one of your limbs may come under the wheels but that’s hardly going to kill you. You would have to fall at such an impossible angle that at least one-third of your body, ideally your head should become the victim.

Scary thought that, particularly when you know this shuttle is not your standard mini-van which universities all around the world operate, but a complete bus; as big as they come. Be sure about that; you are going to end up in pretty bad shape whether you end up dead or not, when one of these monsters goes over you.

And so I went on contemplating. What could have gone through her mind in those final moments? All this must have taken place in about five seconds most; her stepping down halfway, the driver getting the bus on the move and then the climax. It’s hard to imagine her feelings in those last rites. She must have felt incredulous; that this is too absurd to be happening to her; dying this way. Fear? I don’t think so. Fear and terror creeps in when there is ample time to think. But of this I’m convinced that five seconds are just enough to see your entire life go through mind in fast forward. Or maybe your frame of reference causes your own time to move at a snail’s pace.

So I went on pondering on events that I had never witnessed with my own eyes. The same cannot be said of my friend Arshad who had the misfortune to see a 3-4 years old girl mashed under the wheels of one of those huge buses. Whether the child felt anything is debatable, but this poor fellow have had quite a few nightmares, abundant in blood and gore. That’s one of the biggest misconceptions about the human mind that it is programmed to forget undesirable things with time. That time conveniently comes after these memories have succeeded in making your life miserable, only to be replaced by some more unpleasant events. It is a vicious circle, I tell you.

One of these unforgettable-for-ever tragedies happened to Raza’s friend’s elder brother (again a distant connection). The guy did medicine from one of the prestigious medical schools of Pakistan, met and fell in love with a girl down there. The two doctors married, had two kids and nothing could have been better until that fateful day. The two of them were riding his bike when upon hitting a ditch the wife got thrown in the path of an approaching trawler. Then, in front of his very eyes, the head of the love of his life burst like a watermelon under the wheels of the gigantic vehicle; spraying the contents all over the road. Gross details aside, just freeze that moment before the actual impact and put your self in the place. What could have gone through your mind when you know the very next instant your life is going to come tumbling down and you can’t do a damn thing about it? What would you have given to prevent it from happening?

This event would have shattered the best of us no matter in which part of the world we live in, but it is double the agony for people, especially men of South Asian origin, or more specifically Pakistani guys. Consider the insurmountable hurdles that we have to face when choosing a life partner of our own choice. First we have got to know the girl which in itself is torturous given the introvert nature of the ‘Mashriqui’ girl. If by any miracle she does happen to like us enough to marry, getting the nod from our parents and more importantly from her parents is yet another arduous task. Here you run into innumerable problems especially if you both are in the same age bracket (a very high probability) and have yet to find a job and maybe even settle down in your profession.

These are very real dilemmas faced by our youth (I’m one of them, remember?). So if you do manage to get your girl (or guy) against all the odds, that’s tantamount to winning the World Cup or the Olympic Gold. It’s no mean feat.

Now what could such a guy who has gone through hell to get his girl, go through when he watches her die in the most horrific fashion?

Tragedy, my dear, we haven’t seen. Whatever petty misfortunes we may have faced in our uselessly miserable lives pale in comparison to the trauma caused to the families of those that are wasted everyday in absurd accidents. And the best the media can do is be damn objective about it.

And now I’m going to show some pics of a really ugly accident that happened in Islamabad, the first of which I have shown you already. I cannot vouch for their authenticity for I received them in my mailbox from, let’s say, pretty obscure sources. I have posted them in the same order I received them, so you can have the same train of thoughts I had.

The first few snaps depict the wreckage of the car from different angles. It is really mind boggling what could have happened. There is no doubt that speed must have been one of the culprits. It looks like a tornado hit it. Looking at these pictures the first time, I was beginning to wonder the same question I ask myself whenever I see wreckage: what happened to the occupants? Suddenly I scrolled down to a pic showing just that. No redundant explanations, you can see for yourself. Some of my friends are sceptical about the authenticity, but I have no reason to believe otherwise, mostly because there are no make-up artists in Pakistan who can come with such a lasting impact.

Apart from these there are a few other nauseating pics as well. A couple portraying the Diana crash though I cannot vouch for their authenticity. Just pass this stuff around especially to any young speed devils you may be knowing. It’s the only way to make people realize the vanity of rash driving when they themselves see how they can end up.

Diana being pulled out of the wreckage of her car

About two weeks back a 24 year old guy was killed in Islamabad when his Civic careened off a bridge.

PLunged(and crushed) to death in the capital

He could have been saved had he received prompt medical attention. But that’s when somebody could have noticed the accident and called in the paramedics on time. Islamabad is largely a ghost town in winter, and at 1:30 am when this event took place, it is completely deserted. So there’s literally no way someone could have witnessed the event and called for help. But it’s a terrifying thought; spending the last few moments of your life trapped in a car writhing in pain and knowing you’re not gonna make it. May Allah save us all from such excruciating mode of death. Amin

DISCLAIMER:

I don’t know who took these pictures or even if they are genuine or not. I just got them in my mail. Contact me if you’re the owner and I’ll give you credit( provided you can prove it).