They were drugged, arrested, thrown off a plane, and stung so badly they thought they might die—experiences that have nothing in common except for having marked these people forever, sometimes in meaningful, life-changing ways. Here, the jinxed, the lucky, the foolish and the perseverant all tell us how it feels to experience the kind of stuff most of us only get to see on TV.
I GOT DRUGGED
Drew, 35, producer
It happened: In Bangkok, during the Songkran celebrations. A friend of mine was managing a pub, so I was hanging out with her and one of her former classmates, a tour guide, at an outside table. The two girls and I shared a pitcher of beer and watched the water battles rage around us…. My next recollection is being inside, my elbows propped up on the bar, shooting the shit with an Aussie mate of mine. He was eyeing me strangely, which made me nervous so I asked him, “WTF?” He turned to me with this grave look on his face and said, “You have no idea, do you?” Me: “No idea about what?” Him: “An hour ago you were passed out in the doorway of the bar. You were completely gone for two to three hours. We couldn’t wake you and punters were walking over you and you were getting splashed. Then all of a sudden you got up. I bought you a beer. And here we are.”
It felt: Like he was pulling my leg. Even after others corroborated his account—the bartender, my friend the manager, complete strangers— it still didn’t seem possible. I struggled to remember something, anything, from the period between beers on the patio and where I stood at the bar. My mind was completely blank. Not even a faint memory of being sleepy or drowsy, or waking up. At first it was really frustrating. The more I thought about it, it was also quite scary.
After that: The tour guide confessed to my friend the manager that she had put a sleeping pill in my beer—the one that has been referred to in media accounts as the “date rape” drug. “Why the hell did you do that?” my friend asked. Apparently she said she thought “it would be funny.”
I WON A GAMESHOW
Terence Heng, 22, student
It happened: When I first heard about the brand new MediaCorp Channel 5 game show We Are Singaporeans from my friend. I decided to sign up for it to raise funds for my overseas exchange trip. After a relatively simple written test—the only tough question was “Who designed the SIA Girl Sarong Kerbaya uniform?”—and a self-introduction in front of a camera in which I recited the North-South line (a.k.a. Red Line) MRT stations in order, I made it to the show! I had to answer nine questions in the first round and be the top scorer in order to advance to the second round, where I get to climb up the money tree! I stumbled upon a few questions, including the infamous one of me not knowing how to spell Lavender correctly (I wrote “Lavandar” instead) and another of me mistaking local designer Ashley Isham for a “she,” but I eventually made it to the top and answered my final question correctly to win $10,000! My final question was: Which is Singapore’s oldest civil airport? Answer: Kallang Airport.
It felt: Extremely surreal. I had a couple of lucky guesses in Round One (I correctly guessed five meters when asked about the distance of the smoke-free zone outside a commercial building) and I was pretty lucky to get relatively simple questions in Round Two. Even though I did prepare for the show, I didn’t expect to win $10,000 at all, especially since none of the stuff I “studied for” surfaced during the show.
After that: People recognized me. Apparently with all the hype and promotion by Channel 5, my episode was quite highly-watched! And everyone was tweeting about me after the show. Most of them were laughing at my stupid mistakes, but well, I’ll admit I really didn’t know who Ashley Isham was at that time! And as for Lavender, I really don’t know what I was thinking then.
I SURVIVED THE TSUNAMI
Rungsuriya Tiyatonrongrodjana, 37, president of C&N Koh Khao Beach
It happened: When the Tsunami hit, in 2004, at my resort on Koh Kho Kao Island. I first heard a noise like something exploding. When I turned to see the source of the noise, I saw a huge white foamy wave expanding across the entire horizon. The wave had spread as far as the eye could see; it was massive! I saw little dots—ships at sea sinking—so I called for my employees and we piled into my car and drove off.
It felt: Like a movie. Everything happened so quickly. I just saw the wave in the distance, and the unnaturally low tide, and started to run. While I was driving, I looked back and saw the white foam of the wave just behind us. One of my men said it was only 100 meters behind, chasing us. I wasn’t thinking, just focusing on driving away. The wave died some 100 meters after running over the resort, but I still kept driving on and on.
After that: I stayed on the island two more days, without any connection to the outside world. When I returned to my resort, it had been completely destroyed by the wave and we had to rebuild everything. I was desperate, because I had spent some 10 million baht and put a lot of hard work into it and everything was gone in seconds. Today, my resort is rebuilt and we are doing OK.
I FELL INTO A COMA
Diyana, 25, undergraduate
It happened: I was in India for a short vacation with members of my extended family. Memories of the dreadful experience have been erased from my memory but according to my family, a truck had hit our tour van while we were on our way to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. My cousin and younger sister were injured but I was the only one who fell unconscious. I think the truck driver died as a result of the collision.
It felt: Obviously, I felt nothing during my period of unconsciousness. But my family felt my pain. They conducted prayers for me at my grandma’s house.
After that: The extreme feelings of dread only sank in when I realized I had been left behind in terms of my studies. The accident occurred when I was spending my first term at the Singapore Management University (SMU). After I regained consciousness, SMU kindly took me in again and made some allowances for me. As a result of the traumatic brain injury to the left side of my brain, I have had difficulties trying to write quickly with my right hand. I still can’t write as fast as everyone else now, even with four to five years of practicing with my left hand, so my doctor wrote in to say that I should be allowed to type for my exams. I really value the ability to write physically now. As the saying goes, “you are not aware of what you have till you lose it.” Also, I’ve become more religious and live by a quote from Robert Frost, “In three words I can sum everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.”
I WAS STUNG BY A STONEFISH
James Maskell, 32, freelance writer
It happened: On the tiny island of Pandan in the Philippines, this time last year. I was sitting at the edge of the water, and when I pushed down on the sand to stand up, I felt a sharp prick on the inside of my wrist. Within seconds I was in a ridiculous amount of pain and ran to the nearby dive school for help. One of the instructors administered a vacuum pump on the entry point, and sucked out some of the poison before it had chance to enter my bloodstream. But I could see it already spreading up my arm (apparently you’re in real trouble if it moves beyond your limbs), and so they had me submerge my arm in extremely hot water for nearly an hour to neutralize the effect.
It felt: Laughably painful. And by that I mean that when each wave of agonizing pain subsided, I would laugh deliriously at its sheer absence. It was as if my arm had been run over, and I’d have happily head-butted a wall to take my mind off it.
After that: None of the guests on the island went near the shoreline again that day. But the following day we all went in together, wearing shoes, shuffling our feet in the sand to disturb anything that might be lying in wait. And we were fine. It hurt to flex my wrist for about six months after, as there was some nerve damage, but a year on there’s no trace of it.
I WAS THROWN OFF A FLIGHT
Roland, 33, entrepreneur
It happened: A couple of weeks after ORDing from NS, I bought the cheapest plane ticket I could find to visit family in London. Cut-price meant a catch; I would have to route via Bandar Seri Begawan and Abu Dhabi on Royal Brunei Airlines (RBA). I had a seven-hour layover at the former, and as I lounged about the terminal some uniformed guy approached me and asked to see my passport. He took it and disappeared! Soon, boarding began and after seeking him out I was like, “Dude, stop dicking with my passport… I have to go.” He went, “We’ve received word from Singapore that there are people traveling the region with fake Singaporean passports.” I went ape-shit. “So you just stop the first person with a Singapore passport and accuse him of carrying fake documents?” I said, “Not very clever is it?! I just passed through Singapore immigration, so who are you to say this is fake?” After much arguing, he let me on board with a caveat, “The captain will ‘hold your passport’ until we sort it out; it should be sorted by the time we get to Abu Dhabi.” I spent the next seven hours slamming overhead cabins and arguing with the cabin crew (“ask the captain to pull his finger out and return my passport!”). Upon landing, I was welcomed by a party of mustachioed men. “Are you Mr XXX? We’ve been ordered to remove you from the flight. Come with us, please.”
It felt: Like a big f**king joke. I was escorted down to the tarmac where I had to pull my bags from the baggage hold. After that, they kept me in a small room and kept accusing me of having a fake passport. A Malaysian High Commission officer appeared six hours later looking unimpressed (Friday—his day off), looked at my passport, looked at my pink IC, exchanged some words in Singlish and declared “He’s Singaporean.” “Let him go.”
After that: I found myself next to a nutty Arab 12-year-old in my flight out who kept mixing his chocolate milk with vodka. Inspired, I joined in and was trashed upon landing at Heathrow.
I WAS ARRESTED FOR ATTEMPTED SUICIDE
Daisy, 28, restaurateur
It happened: In Singapore, where attempted suicide is a crime. I’ll start with the police entering my parents’ flat on the 11th floor, where I was sitting on the window ledge: A passer-by had alerted them. After failing to coax me to voluntarily come down from it, one of the officers grabbed me from behind. While calming me down, she gently explained that attempted suicide is a crime before I was taken to the station. Once in there, I was made to surrender my belongings and handcuffed throughout my time in there. I was to be taken to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for assessment, but not before I spent about 15 hours in the holding cell with junkies. The prison wardens made no distinction between me and the other inmates—I was handled roughly, spoken to rudely, and ignored when I called for attention. When the time came to escort me to the IMH, I was made to stand facing the wall while they shackled my hands and feet (I felt like a trussed-up Hannibal Lecter, only without the mask) before leading me to the police van. I was only freed of my restraints when I was in the IMH ward.
It felt: Horrid. Imagine already being in such a fragile state, then being subjected to all that. I half wished I had finished the job, for there was the potential that I would have a criminal record and/or be diagnosed with a mental disorder, and my career prospects would be ruined because of this.
After that: I’m now living with aunts. I wasn’t charged with any offence and my mental health record stays clean, but that doesn’t excuse my treatment in the holding cell. This is a good example of how ludicrous it is that attempted suicide is an offence here. Suicidal people are already going through a lot of pain—they need help, not prosecution (or even the fear of it).
I CLIMBED MOUNT EVEREST
David Lim, 45, professional mountaineer and motivational speaker
It happened: In 1998, on Mount Everest. I led the first Singaporean summit attempt expedition. My team made it to the top even though I myself was unable to, due to an injury on the final summit push. It was my obligation to put other team members on the summit, even if I didn’t make it myself.
It felt: Tremendous, once you actually start climbing. But the experience of climbing Everest is all about being patient. On the marches to and from the bottom of really big mountains that are 8,000 meters tall and higher, you spend a good half of the expedition sitting on your butt resting, waiting out long spells of bad weather. The climb itself is not that exciting because it’s not technically difficult. It doesn’t require a high level of gymnastic ability. The thrill is in following in the footsteps of giants.
After that: I did find my time on Everest immensely enriching and rewarding although it won’t give mountaineers the same experience that other mountains will give. It should be about the quality of the experience rather than the actual number of summits. (Note: Lim suffered a very rare and serious disease, Guillan-Barre syndrome, upon his descent. He has fully recovered and has gone on to climb many more summits.)
