“I know I’m alive, and I know someone up there gave me a second chance”.
Those were the words of Sailasa Kaucoko, who was among those rescued when a station wagon they were travelling in plunged into a river in Sigatoka in 1982.
According to an article published by the Fiji Times on August 10 that year, when asked how he felt after he was released from Lautoka Hospital, Mr Kaucoko gave a big smile and spoke about his rescue and the influence of “someone up there”.
On July 25 of that year eight men were rescued from drowning when their station wagon went off the Korolevu bridge and into the water.
Mr Kaucoko, who was a wine captain at the time in the main restaurant (Hugos) at the Hyatt Regency, and his seven colleagues were returning from Korolevu, where they had gone after work when the accident occurred.
He said nobody in the car realised the accident had happened until the car was balanced on the top beam of the bridge before plunging into the river.
“I knew the car was going to go upside down and I knew I was going to die.”
His description of the position of the car in the water seemed funny, and he even laughed at the picture, but at the time, it was not even remotely funny.
“All four tyres were in the air and the roof down.”
He was one of the first to try to get out because he was sitting near the window, but the car was too full, and also, the bottom of the river was too muddy.
“The car windows were down, and the car was already filled with water. It was too dark for us to see anything. I tried to breathe, and that was the last I remember.”
The next day, he woke up on a hospital bed.
The sweetest sound he heard at that time was the sound of his wife Koto crying.
“I thought I was dead when I went under. When they pulled me out of the water, I was the one they described as being “like a piece of timber”.
For the 10 days he was in hospital, three days in Sigatoka Hospital and seven days in Lautoka Hospital, his wife kept a vigil throughout.
Mr Kaucoko then made a resolution that he would never drink alcohol again and expressed gratitude to all those who looked after him, visited, or sent messages and telegrams during his recovery.
