That Fateful Day (Page 3 of 3)

When Sarosh and others arrived, they comforted the injured and administered first aid. Delia placed her pillow beneath Baba’s bleeding head. (This blood stained pillow, unlaundered, is at the Meher Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.)

Seven miles east of the accident site and 50 miles east of Oklahoma City, in the small agricultural community of Prague, Dr. Ned Burleson was making his rounds at the clinic he had founded and maintained since 1950. The first person brought into the clinic happened to be Elizabeth. By the time the doctor determined that she had broken her arm and eleven ribs, Mehera was brought in. Hers was the most critical injury of all. In 1970, Dr. Burleson said she had suffered “the worst skull fracture I’ve ever seen. Like an egg you’ve dropped on the floor.” He didn’t expect her to live.

The spot where Meher Baba’s head lay (left) and His body (right). He lay in a shallow ditch in the foreground. The ditch flows into a metal pipe that goes under the driveway. -Photos by Kendal Jackson in 1992

(Meheru recollected the accident recently: Baba was badly injured, sustaining injuries to His face and fracturing His left arm and left leg. Though Baba did walk again with the same graceful and easy stride as before, some lingering pain remained. It was the second accident in which His right hip was shattered. Mehera’s head wound was a frontal fracture of the skull, probably caused by the metal door when she was thrown from the vehicle. Along with Goher and Mani, I attended Mehera and we would not let any man touch her until Baba permitted it. He gestured to us to let the medical corps do what needed to be done for Mehera in the medical field. The first medical helpers, who came from Prague in an ambulance, lifted Mehera onto the stretcher and drove her to the hospital. Baba was also taken to the hospital in the same ambulance.)

Dr. Burleson was picking glass out of Mehera’s frontal bone when Dr. Goher rushed in and frantically urged him to come and see Baba. Dr. Burleson would later recollect, “They were saying ‘Baba this, Baba that.’ I didn’t know what they were talking about. I had no idea who Baba was and barely heard Dr. Irani because of the concentration on what I was doing. We had been compelled to give Mehera pentothal in order to keep her quiet, while we attended to her, and I wanted to get through that job before the anesthetic wore off so that I would not have to give her anymore.”

When Dr. Burleson finally got around to attending to Baba, he was most surprised: “As soon as I came in the doorway, he started grinning at me and smiling away, so I figured he can’t be hurt too badly. Till I found out later… I was also astounded to find that he did not speak or make any sound denoting discomfort. I assumed that he could not, but was soon informed that he did not speak because of a willful act. I knew we were going to have to give him a general anesthetic (pentothal, also known as the “truth drug”) to set his fractures and I suspected that he would say something at that time but he didn’t.”

Dr. Ned Burleson with his wife, Julia Wallace, photographed in the 20s.

Meheru had minor fractures in both hands, while Mani who had been sleeping at the time of the accident was the only one unhurt. Baba and His party turned the clinic upside down. Elizabeth and Mehera were placed in the only room available, with Kitty there to attend to them. Baba was moved into the surgeon’s private study, attended by Rano and Goher. Specialists were summoned from Oklahoma City. The men mandali arrived from Meher Mount and stayed in a local motel. Ivy and Charmian Duce came, as did Margaret Craske, who helped Baba with muscle exercises. The townspeople brought flowers and gifts for the unusual visitors. The group stayed in Prague for 13 days before returning to Myrtle Beach in an ambulance, attended by a local nurse.

In a message Meher Baba dictated on June 13, He said, “The personal disaster for some years foretold by me at last happened while crossing the American continent, causing Me , through facial injuries , a broken leg and a broken arm, much mental and physical suffering. It was necessary that it should happen in America. God willed it so.”