ALKHOBAR, 19 September 2003 — Huma Mohkam’s life changed forever on Sept. 8, 1997. She and her family were traveling by car from Riyadh to Alkhobar when their Ford Taurus had a serious mechanical failure, went into a spin and turned over. The driver died instantly; his neck was broken.
“The car was twisted and I could hear my husband screaming in pain. He had landed a few meters outside the car; one leg was badly broken. I could see that my daughters were drenched in blood, but thank God, they were fine. The blood was from broken glass which had cut them badly. Surprisingly I felt no pain. But when I looked down I saw that my hip was disjointed and I realized immediately that I was paralyzed.”
All of Huma’s ribs were broken and her hip bone and spinal chord were crushed.
One of the most painful things to bear, however, was the insurance investigator’s report.
The car had been in a workshop for two days before the journey, and everything was supposedly all right. Unfortunately, however, the mechanic had not done the job properly. He had removed some genuine parts and replaced them with low quality copies.
“My husband is a Pakistani and he insisted on going to a Pakistani mechanic. Unfortunately patriotism cost us dearly,” Huma said.
Several surgeries and months of recuperation later, Huma was given the bad news: she would never walk again. She is 65 percent paralyzed. She even went to the famous Kessler Institute in New Jersey where she saw Dr. Bloom, who had treated the actor Christopher Reeve. “To be honest, I had gone hoping for a miracle, hoping that I would come back walking.”
That didn’t happen but Huma returned with an iron will to survive. “Dr. Bloom taught me to take one day at a time. The first nine months after my accident I cried constantly. My mother used to say that even if I miraculously walked again, I would go blind from all the crying.”
Huma continued: “I couldn’t face people. I felt abnormal. My friends pretended that everything was fine. The biggest fear my relatives and friends had was that my husband would remarry. Some were even insensitive enough to suggest to my husband that he needed to start looking for another wife — and this while I was still in the hospital. My husband only said one thing: ‘I’ve spent the good years with her and now I will spend the bad ones as well’.”
Huma decided to count her blessings and then fight back.
“I was grateful that I had use of my upper body. All day long, I thought that the three people who mattered most to me were alive and well — my daughters and my husband. I also thanked God that he had made us able to afford a maid and a comfortable house. I tried to be the same kind of wife and mother that I always was. I attend all my children’s school activities. I do all the cooking myself. I mop and use a vacuum. I even dress up at times and try to look as good as possible; some people of course have made nasty comments suggesting that an invalid should live like an invalid.”
People’s reactions sometimes hurt Huma more than the accident did. “When I go to malls, people stare. Some sympathize, some give me the sort of looks which mean I really shouldn’t be seen outdoors. The Indo-Pakistani community is the most insensitive. If I go to a restaurant, I can see people literally freeze, their mouths open as they think, ‘Is that woman in a wheel chair?’ Once in Pakistan, my husband stopped the car near a shop and was helping me out. A bystander said in irritation, ‘Why didn’t you just leave her at home?’”
Of course, Huma struggles every day. “It has been a long time. I am managing, but sometimes it still hurts. I applied for a part-time teaching job at a Saudi school. Now I am very experienced and qualified but they did not hire me. Their reason: ‘It would affect the children negatively to have a handicapped teacher.’”
The hardest thing is traveling. “I have to be carried to my seat by two strong men. Unfortunately PIA, and sometimes Saudia, does not have a chair which is narrow enough to pass through the aisles. A regular wheelchair can’t. The airline staff ask that I try to take a few steps and walk to my seat, and we have to explain that I cannot take a single step. Then I am lifted in, in full view of everybody, with children pointing. That is a humiliating experience.”
Has Huma ever sought counseling?
“No. I have put my faith in God and He has never disappointed me. In fact, the doctors in Riyadh and even at the Kessler Institute always asked me to counsel and talk to other patients. ‘We have never seen such an optimist as you,’ they told me.”