Faifi was beyond medical reach, breathing but unconscious. All his father could do was pray by his side. At 38 years of age, Faifi was close to being just another number in Saudi traffic accident statistics that record one fatality every 60 minutes. An ex-soldier, Faifi was on a mountain road in the southwest when it happened. It was 7 A.M. He was driving from Taif with two of his relatives. They were up the mountain on the road to Faifa in the southwest, Faifi's hometown. The mist was lifting and they rolled down the window of his compact Toyota Corolla to let in the morning cool. Visibility was enough for Faifi to step on the gas pedal and swing the car at the curves on the zigzag road. He did it a few times, taking sharp left turns and was in the middle of another turn when suddenly the back left wheel gave way and rolled off. The speeding car flipped over, bounced and hurtled to a stop, killing one of his relatives instantly. The other was unhurt. Rescue teams took two hours to arrive and extricate the men from the mangled car. Faifi was found unconscious, bruised in the head. Head injury is most common in road accidents. It can cause instant death or total blackout due to possible brain damage. Faifi was taken to Jizan General Hospital where surgeons managed to contain the bleeding in his head. Three months later, the head wound healed but Faifi had still not surfaced. He was transfered to Al-Hada military hospital. There, for two-and-a-half years, Faifi showed no sign of regaining consciousness though his medical condition was stable. His friends and relatives would visit occasionally and pity his father for, unlike him, they held no hope that Faifi would ever come back to senses. Then one day, his father's prayers were answered. Faifi's eyes opened. He could talk. And move. A bit. “I have a new life now,” Faifi told Saudi Gazette nearly seven years later as he sought to piece together the story of how had he worked his way to life anew. The most common impairment among severely head-injured patients is memory loss, characterized by some loss of specific memories and partial inability to form or store new ones. Faifi could clearly recall how the accident had happened. “It was the usual cause of death and accidents in Saudi Arabia... fast car taking sharp turns to the left, putting pressure on the wheels. I was on the road to Faifa city to visit my village, my family there... my whole tribe.” He spoke slowly, as if choosing his words and not quite as if he was trying to remember. “I had a brain operation for drainage of hematoma,” he said, using the precise medical term for collection of blood due to bleeding. “They fixed tracheostomy for breathing.” (Tracheostomy is a surgical procedure on the neck to open a direct airway through an incision in the windpipe). “One of the consequences of the trauma is forgetting things... places even,” he added. “When I talk to somebody, after a while... I forget what I had said to him and what he had told me.” Not once did he repeat himself as he spoke to the Gazette about his road to recovery and his newfound josh for life. It wasn't easy, he said. “I had to undergo physical rehabilitation to recondition my body... so as to be able to move after three years of immobility.” He still visits the hospital regularly as an outpatient. But more importantly, he said, “I treat myself.” “I wake up early in the morning and start walking, jogging and running. My muscles were very weak but now, after a long period of treatment... they are strong enough for me to start my life again.” Faifi is married and has two daughters. They all manage to get by on his Army pension. “I have the best wife and I will not do what my father did,” he said with a laugh. “He has two wives!” Faifi is lucky he can still laugh. 30% Tire failure reportedly causes 30 percent of road accidents in the Kingdom. Nearly 6,000 people died in traffic accidents in 2007 in this country of 27.6 million, according to the Saudi Traffic Department. That is a rate of about 21 deaths per 100,000 people — one of the highest in the world. By comparison, around 14 per 100,000 people died in road accidents in the United States in 2006. __
