"How a car crash changed my life"

BY RACHEL RADITSEBEIn a split second, Lebogang Monamisi’s world changed forever. One moment she was enjoying her youth and the next, paralyzed from the waist down. But she says the experience has made her even more determined to achieve her dreams and live a full life.

“Have you ever had your whole life change in an instant? A split second that you never saw coming and after which everything changes for ever?” asks Monamisi. “Well, that’s the story of my life”.

On May 12, 2013, Monamisi was riding in a car with three of her friends. “We were from a baby shower when a car behind us suddenly rammed ours twice, for no reason at all,” she narrates. A car chase would follow and before she knew it, the driver of their car had lost control and the car rolled countless times.

The crash was so horrific it left her with severe facial injuries and paralysed from the breastbone down. Although life changed for Monamisi when she went from being an independent young woman to having to relearn the simplest tasks such as making tea, and relying on a wheelchair to get around; Monamisi now 28, says she wouldn’t change what has happened to her.

“Words cannot express the terror I felt when I was told I would never walk again. The next couple of days were a living nightmare. But then, I had a moment of clarity. I knew my life would be defined by this moment. How would I handle this horrific news? Answering one simple question put me on the path to overcoming this tragedy.

I asked myself if I wanted to live a happy life or be miserable. I really believe the experience has given me focus,” she says.

“There were and still are times when I want to cry out of frustration but I make it a point to think positive and be grateful that I’m still alive, a lot of people don’t have that luxury,” she says. Adding, “at the time, I thought the accident would hinder me a lot but it has been the making of me.”

An accounting and Finance student at GIPS, Monamisi says she has learned how to laugh and be happy during the most difficult of times, but most of all, “I learned how precious every breath is and how blessed I am to have so much love in my life. That phase of ‘why me’ is long gone. You cannot fight this, you have to accept it and make the best of a bad situation.”

She feels however that there is a lot of prejudice against the differently abled. “We are taught not to discriminate over colour, to believe in women’s empowerment, but what about not discriminating against the handicapped?  It’s difficult enough to adjust to life on a wheelchair without society reminding and making you feel that there is something wrong with you at every chance!” she exclaimed.  

But whatever lies ahead the mother of six-year old daughter is prepared to deal with it and make the best of what she has. “You feel like giving up sometimes; that’s true, but I think that happens with ‘normal’   too,” she said. “You just have to take each day at a time, each goal at a time”.