The wristwatch still shows the time 8.07. Flight attendant Nidhi Chapekar was wearing it when a bomb exploded at Brussels Airport and killed 32 people on March 22 last year. “When I heard the first explosion in the airport building it felt like a ceiling had fallen. Seconds later, chaos followed with smoke all around. I thought of going to the place of explosion to help others but my colleague stopped me saying it was a bomb. As we looked for shelter, there was another explosion and I was thrown away and I fainted,” she said.
When I regained senses, I saw people with torn limbs and severe injuries. I tried to move but a piece of metal had pierced my leg and I was unable to move. Then somebody helped me to reach a chair. It was there that I was photographed,” she said.
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The photographs of Nidhi taken by Georgian journalist Ketevan Kardava minutes after the blast became an instant hit worldwide. Though it started a debate over photography ethics, Nidhi said she would have given permission. “It shows how helpless a person can be in a situation like this,” she said.
Reuters
Within minutes she was taken to hospital. The first person to visit her was Shabbir Ahmad, a Belgian shopkeeper of Pakistani origin. She had known him for about a decade, as she used to go to his shop to make phone calls to India. Till her family arrived, Shabbir was in the hospital.
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Nidhi, 41, is now recuperating at her flat in Andheri East, Mumbai, after multiple grafts and surgeries. “The blast was a kind of a rebirth for me,” she said. “I now value this life more and plan to give back to society.
I had never imagined that it could happen to me; but now I feel it could happen to anyone.”
It was after 23 days of induced coma, six grafts and three surgeries at Grand Hospital De Charleroi in Belgium that Nidhi saw her face. “I was afraid of being accepted when I first saw my face. It was almost like a second blast. I did not want to live with that face,” she said.
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That was the most challenging phase. But she recovered with the help of her husband, Rupesh, and children, Vrishi and Vardhaan. “It would have been difficult if she had lost courage,” said Rupesh. “Her never-say-die spirit, coupled with the support from Jet Airways and the Indian embassy in Brussels, had brought her back to her usual self.” Nidhi was overwhelmed when Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal and wife visited her at the hospital in Belgium.
And, Nidhi is now raring to fly again. “After all,” she said, “I am a true Punjabi.”
