Jyoti Shelar (MUMBAI MIRROR; June 30, 2012)

 

Around 8 pm Friday, Charu Khandal was wheeled into a rented ground-floor apartment at Seven Bungalows, Andheri that her family had shifted into just an hour earlier. After spending 97 days in the hospital strapped to tubes and medical contraptions, she was laughing, speaking, whistling, making faces, unable to believe she’s home.

Charu’s family members, extremely proud of their girl’s “doughty-spirit”, were unable to control their tears when the 28-year-old — employed with Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment — was brought out of Kokilaben Ambani Hospital at Andheri in the evening. She is paralysed neck down; complete recovery is still a long way away, but her survival itself is nothing short of a miracle considering her condition on March 25, when an autorickshaw she was travelling in with her sister Ritu and a friend, Vikrant Goyal, was hit by a speeding Honda City at Oshiwara. The car driver, identified as Manoj Netrapal alias Gautam, 39, was drunk, according to the police.

Charu, who was returning home to Lokhandwala after the team she headed won a National Award for the special effects in Ra.One, suffered severe injuries to her spine. Doctors gave her a very low chance of survival, while Netrapal was let off on a surety of Rs 10,000. He has not been re-arrested.

Now, the doctors say she will stand up on her feet, maybe after a year, two years, even five years. A little movement in her left shoulder has given the More >