The Accident Brought Out The Best In Me

Mumbai-based Paulami Patel lost an arm in an electrocution accident and lived to tell the tale of how she emerged bolder, stronger from it

The year was 2001. I was 12 and was visiting my paternal uncle in Hyderabad. All my relatives and cousins stay there, and it was a custom to visit them every summer vacation. On June 4, 2001, I was playing in the balcony of my uncle’s house on the second floor. I remember I had created a make-believe fishing rod with a stick to which I tied a small toy bucket, and I was pretending to fish from the balcony. That’s when the rod slipped out of my hand and fell on some wires passing right outside the balcony. Usually such wires aren’t that close to residential spaces; I didn’t know what those wires were. Without thinking, I put out my hand and tried to grab the rod, but I touched the wire instead. Suddenly, a current passed through my body, and my right hand got stuck to the wire—I had unknowingly touched an 11,000-volt high-tension wire. I screamed and soon lost consciousness. I don’t know what happened next, but I found myself in the hospital with 80 per cent burns. I had a lot of open wounds and was in the ICU for a week. I had burns below my neck—my hands, thighs, feet…