Paralyzed at 20 After a Freak Fall — Doctors Said She’d Never Walk Again

At 20 years old, Pooja Arora experienced a freak fall that led to a life-altering diagnosis: paralysis. Doctors told her she would never walk again.

In Chapter 9 of Inner Library Alignment, Rachel Golden sits with Pooja at the moment everything changes—when a spinal cord injury and devastating prognosis begin to reshape identity, belief, and what feels possible.

This episode explores trauma, paralysis, and the impact of being told your future is already decided—and what it means to face that moment.

If this conversation shifted something in you, honor that shift.

Follow the podcast, share this episode with someone ready to align, know, and recognize that they have always been the author.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I remembered seeing myself hit the parapet, then hit the car, the hit the concrete floor. When I had fallen on the concrete floor, I'd hit the car and then fallen on the floor next to it. Somehow I had rolled underneath the car. She couldn't find me anywhere, so she was looking outside. When she came back inside the house, she saw blood. And then she kind of squeaked. Then she kneeled down and she found me laying down in a pool of blood. So she freaked out. They couldn't move the car because the car was this old car that couldn't be moved. So they had to gingerly get me out. I was unconscious. When they took me on for procedure, because my skull had burst open. And that's where the most of the blood was coming from. So they identified that and they immediately took me for a procedure to stitch up my skull. So I am a cracked head. To this day, I have eight stitches in my skull. I remember asking them, what does that mean for me? Like, will I be wheelchairbound for the rest of my life? And the doctor looked at me and said, miracles can happen, but for now, that's the case.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Hi, souls. Welcome to the chapter No One Expected Her to Rewrite. At 20 years old, Pooja Aurora survived a freak fall from a balcony, and doctors told her she would never walk again. Those words were spoken as if nothing more could be written, as if an authority could finalize her future. But she refused to let that prognosis define the rest of her story. And what happened next is the kind of story we usually encounter at a distance, in a book or on a podcast. Names like Joe Dispenza, Anita Morjani, stories that feel rare, almost unreachable. But this miracle isn't far away. It isn't theoretical. It is embodied. It is lived. It unfolds in the life of the woman who has guided and supported my healing and whose lived healing reshaped how I understand resilience, possibility, and the power of authorship. Welcome to Interlibrary Alignment. I'm Rachel Golden, guiding you into your inner library where healing begins through conscious authorship. And today I'm joined by Pooja Aurora. She is a holistic therapist and the co-founder of Redefine Wellness. Pooja's life changed in an instant, a fall, a prognosis, paralysis. This conversation is not just about survival, it is about authorship. And as you listen, notice where a sentence may have been spoken over you and stay with the question: what happens next? And now Pooja has kindly agreed to open and share her inner library with us. And so I just want to go ahead and get started. Pooja, if we were to go into your inner library to the book, September 1997. Who was Pooja in that moment before the fall?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Rachel, firstly, thank you so much for having me here. I'm really excited to be here and share this uh story with you and all the people hearing and seeing us today. In September of 97, I was 20 years old. And who was I then? I was just a regular college student. So I was studying engineering at that point in time. My hometown is in Rajasthan, and I had moved to Delhi. So I was living with my best friend and his boyfriend. I was going to college, was planning for my future. Just a regular college girl. There's nothing drastically different between me and millions of other people who were studying at that point in time.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Okay, so you were studying and you were living with roommates?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yes, I was living with my flatmate and her boyfriend.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Okay, and how else was your life? Were you partying? How were your classes? How were you performing in school?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yes, I was doing all of the above. I've always been a decent student. So I think the studying aspect was quite good. It was quite easy, in fact. My focus really was to embrace this new city. I was in big metropolitan Delhi from coming from a small town. That was a big deal. I was uh kind of figuring out independence, especially financial independence. I was doing small jobs to earn money, so I can then go party and have fun. So yeah, very regular college life.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Okay, were you active in any type of sports or hobbies?

SPEAKER_00 4:55

No, not really. I had a lot of hobbies, but I wasn't really sporty. But I used to love going for walks. I don't know if that would be considered sporty. So I used to go for a lot of walks. I loved eating out. So me and my flatmate and her boyfriend, the three of us, would step out quite often to go out to eat. Um, we would take road trips, um, go for music concerts. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

So with you being in a new metropolitan city significantly larger than Rajasthan, were you active on the social scene, the nightlife?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

So in India, in college times in 1997, the nightlife didn't exist because it was very unsafe for girls to be out.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

So what used to happen was the day life. So there used to be uh what's called day discourse at that point in time. I I'm dating myself by even bringing that up. There used to be this popular place called Gongrus, which used to organize what would be traditional nightlife from like four to seven, which was appropriate for the girls to be out at that point in time in Delhi.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

So yes, I was very much in the day life, uh, partying and meeting friends and having a good time.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Okay, all right. And so we know about the freak fall. And just take us to that day, that particular day, and share with us exactly what happened. What were you doing before that freak fall?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Sure. I was actually preparing for my exams. Um, so I was studying, I think it was an exam in one or two days. I was very busy studying. And there was this coffee shop, which was about 10, 15 minutes' walk away, which I'd like to go grab a coffee with. So I wanted to go basically take a break from studying and go grab a coffee so that I can come back refreshed to continue studying. So I told my flatmate, also Pooja, and uh her boyfriend Nathan, to basically come with me to go for the coffee shop. And uh they said, yeah, they're gonna finish something. They were finishing off a movie or something inside. So I went outside. There was a little balcony, so I sat on the balcony railing while I was waiting for them to come and uh basically go to the coffee shop with them. And at that point in time, I was suffering from low blood pressure. And it had happened before a couple of days back where I felt faint. Um, I didn't really take it seriously, to be very honest. I thought I just hadn't eaten enough, or I was just up late night too much. As I was sitting on the balcony railing, I think that's what happened. I felt faint. And uh I have a very vivid recollection of seeing myself fall off the balcony. So there was a balcony and then there was a parapet, and there was a car, and there was a concrete floor. So I was sitting on the balcony railing, waiting for my uh flatmate and her fiance to come, or boyfriend at that point in time to come. And then I fell faint and I remembered seeing myself hit the parapet, then hit the car, the hit the concrete floor, and then black out.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

So you saw yourself falling. Yes, I saw myself falling. Do you recall what feelings you were experiencing at that point?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Oh shit. Oh shit. I think that was probably the biggest feelings like I'm losing control, I'm falling, and I have a very distinct memory of seeing myself fall. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

And tell us about the part you blacked out. Who discovered you?

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Well, I've been told later that my flatmate also, her name is also Puja. So she came out looking for me, saying, Hey, where are you? We're waiting for you. Let's go for coffee. She didn't see me on the balcony railing. We were on the first floor in India, the ground floor on the first floor, what would be the second floor in Singapore? And then she came down the steps uh looking for me. She went outside looking for me. Because what had happened is when I had fallen on the concrete floor, I'd hit the car and then fallen on the floor next to it. Somehow I had rolled underneath the car. So they she couldn't find me anywhere. So she was looking outside. When she came back inside the house, she saw blood. And then she kind of squeaked. Then she kneeled down and she found me laying down in a pool of blood. So she freaked out. So she called her boyfriend, who ran down the steps trying to find me, and he unfortunately fell on the steps as well. So he hurt, he injured himself. And then they found me under the car. They couldn't move the car because the car was this old car that couldn't be moved. So they had to gingerly get me out. I was unconscious. And I think as they were trying to get me out of the car, I came to, I became conscious. And I think the funny memory that we have from that time, and we all three of us to laugh at it, is when I came to, I was conscious, there was a hospital nearby uh where they wanted to take me. And they were like, Oh, we'll take you to this nearby hospital. And I'm half unconscious, I'm completely dripping in blood, I can't move, I'm in significant pain. And I had a fight with them on which hospital I wanted to go to. So I was like, While you're in pain. Yeah, just as they dragged me out and they were like, Oh, we're going to take you to this hospital, which is like a 10-minute walk from where we were. And I was like, No way, you're not taking me to this hospital, you're taking me to the other hospital, which needed a car. We didn't have a car at that point in time. And my brother was like, We need to get you somebody to look at you because we don't know what's happened. You're you have a broken skull.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Okay, so are there ambulance services?

SPEAKER_00 10:40

In India at that time, we're talking 1997. If you would have called an ambulance, that would have taken a few hours to come and a few hours to reach the hospital. So my brother found the neighbor who had a car and they borrowed the car. And the poor guy, the neighbor, I still remember his face. He was very concerned about the car because I was literally oozing blood. But he couldn't say anything because I was literally oozing blood, and we needed the car to get me to a hospital. So he was trying to get like towels and sheets to cover the car seat so that the car seat is not filled with blood. I have a vivid memory of his face. He was like, I have to give the car, but I don't know what condition the car will come back in. So that was again another funny incident I remember from that time.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

And what was the time duration from the time of your fall for from the time of them pulling you out to getting you into the car on your way to the hospital?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Probably a few minutes. So This all happened very quickly. This all happened very quickly. So we had this argument. I think they just gave in because I was just so adamant that I will not go to that hospital, which ended up being a good thing. And then we found the car in the next couple of minutes because there was a lot of commotion around the blood. And they got me in the car to the on the way to the hospital soon.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

And were you screaming? Like, were you I mean, how were you expressing what you were going through?

SPEAKER_00 12:04

I think I was in shock, probably, because I don't have any memory of pain or I have like I theoretically know I was in pain, but I don't have memory of pain. But the actual pain. Um and I don't think I was screaming. I think I was arguing more than screaming because between the three of us, I think all three of us were in shock. We were arguing about who's driving the car. I was giving directions to my brother saying, go from here, go from there. And my best friend was completely freaked out, seeing all the blood. And we were trying to figure out the doctor. So I think there was a lot of discussion and argument rather than screaming in shotgun. Okay, at what point did they notify your family? So once we got to the hospital in the ER, um they took me in. And I think my my friend notified the family, but my family is about two and a half, three hours away. I think that time it probably would be three and a half hours away.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

And did they have to carry you into the hospital? I think as soon as the car reached the hospital, they found a stretcher. So I think they just put me on a stretcher and they took me back in. Okay. And so you're conscious the whole time? I was unconscious for a few minutes when I was under the car. Um yeah, other than that, I was conscious of being dragged in. And when they took me in for surgery, actually, not the surgery, when they took me on for procedure, because my skull had burst open. And that's where the most of the blood was coming from. So they identified that and they immediately took me for a procedure to stitch up my skull. So I am a cracked head.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Uh so to this day you're a cracked head.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

To this day, I have eight stitches in my skull.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

So they yeah, they took me to a procedure to stitch up my skull, and I think that time they gave me some painkillers or morphine or something like that, which knocked me off because there was so much bleeding.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Okay, and so were you aware that you had to have these stitches in your skull? Did you know your skull was cracked? At what point did you find that out?

SPEAKER_00 14:04

I think they told me later that they stitched up my skull. I remember asking them, did my brain come out of my skull? And they were like, No, your brain's intact. It was just a crack in the skull. And I was like, okay, great. So I think that was my concern that have I cracked it open so much that my brain has come somehow come out of the skull.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Okay, but you were completely alert.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

I was quite conscious till they gave me the pain meds to knock me off. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

And then what happened after that?

SPEAKER_00 14:34

So actually, they did not uh even find out about the paralysis at that point in time. They actually thought the biggest issue was the skull because there was so much, the bleeding was from the skull.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

And they uh put me in the hospital bed. And I still remember that I didn't even realize the intensity of it um till much later. So going back to my family, my parents were notified, they went home. And uh it was raining after my accident, it started raining. So when my mother came to, she came to the house. It was an empty house, and it had rained for two or three hours before that. And then she saw the leftover blood, and she fainted because in her mind it had rained for two, three hours, so a lot of blood would have kind of been washed away.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

And then she saw the leftover blood and she realized that if this was leftover, she couldn't even imagine how much was there in the beginning. So I think she almost had a meltdown at that point in time, and then they came to the hospital to see me. They discharged me after that, next year, after one or two days, without even figuring out anything else that was wrong. So they discharged you? They discharged me because they only thought it was a skull injury, and the skull injury they stitched it up and it was healing. Well, okay. So when they discharged me, um, I very vividly remembered telling my parents that I can't really move. And they were like, Oh yeah, it's the skull injury, it just takes a few minutes. You have so much like medicines in you, so you'll be fine. So they almost kind of uh disregarded this idea that I could move, I couldn't move. And then my parents insisted to do an MRI of the spine because of the fall. This they hadn't done that by then. In the MRI, they realized that my neck bone, which is C7, and one more vertebrae, which is T3, was broken. And the C7 was inside a nerve bundle, which was causing partial paralysis of the right side of my body.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

So this was how many days after the accident? About one to two days. One to two days? Yeah, I don't remember exactly, but one to two days. So the hospital discharged you? Yes. And your mother basically demanded that you have a further checkup after you expressed that you could not move. That's correct. So did you know you were paralyzed at that moment? No, I had no idea.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

I was in severe discomfort and I couldn't move, but I didn't have any idea that I would be paralyzed.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

So everyone was taking care of you, basically, taking care of your needs at that time when you were discharged from the hospital?

SPEAKER_00 17:19

So I I was still at the hospital. They were kind of, in a way, running the discharge papers. They were saying that we're going to be discharging you now. Okay. Okay. I didn't physically leave the hospital, but then my mother insisted that they do this check before discharge. Oh, I understand. And then we found out that I was uh paralyzed.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Can you tell us what else you experienced? I know we know about the blood and your brain, your skull being cracked. Is there any other damage in your body that occurred?

SPEAKER_00 17:48

So there were a few bones that were broken. So the biggest impact was the C7, which is the neck bone, that got split into two, and one part entered the nerve bundle, which was what was causing the paralysis. The other was T3 that got cracked. Um, my collarbone broke. I think these were the major bones that were broken, from what I remember. Was there a fracture in the leg? I don't know because I was bedroom for so long, I don't remember if there was any other hairline fractures anywhere else, which would have then healed otherwise. Again, I have a very vivid memory of the hospital because then I had all my classmates visiting me. And I think I didn't even realize how serious the accident was. Um, I knew that my neck bone was broken, but I didn't realize again the severity of the prognosis because they were still trying to figure it out. Um, but I think everybody else else did. So I remember that I would be laying in the hospital bed and I would have my classmates and my friends visiting me, and they were all really shocked and kind of dealing with what happened, and they would be very somber and very upset for me. And how did you react to their own? And I was laughing. It was really funny because I was like the joker in the room, and I was making everybody laugh at the jokes and calling myself a cracked head because it was just so somber. And I was like, what's wrong with people? So I was probably the only joker in the room, uh, laughing and making fun of it because nobody else seems to be able to take it easily.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Pooja, take us to the moment when you were officially diagnosed.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Once they ran the MRIs, I think they ran a couple of MRIs because they were quite uh shocked to see what they found. They didn't really officially diagnose me till about three or four days after the MRIs were done. So uh I remember the neurosurgeon came and they sat down with me and my parents and my friends to say, hey, this bone is broken. There is a part in the nerve bundle which is causing paralysis. We had two options. We could either do surgery or we would try basically letting it heal. Um, the surgery had a higher risk of permanent paralysis because they said if they take out the bone out of the nerve bundle, it could further sever the nerves. So they said surgery was very risky and they didn't recommend that. They said if we leave it, then at least only one side of the body is paralyzed. They said miracles can happen. I still remember the doctor saying miracles can happen and things can change, but at least one side is working.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

And I remember asking them, uh, well, what does that mean for me? Like, will I be wheelchairbound for the rest of my life? And the doctor looked at me and said, miracles can happen, but for now, that's the case. How did you feel about that? Were your beliefs? I think my first reaction was I looked at the doctor straight in his eyes and I said, Well, miracle will happen. One day I will climb Kilimanjaro. That was my first reaction to the diagnosis. And uh the funny thing is, I did climb Kilimanjaro. It was in 2013, many years after that. But uh I have a very vivid recollection of telling that to the doctor as my first response to the prognosis.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Okay. Just hold that thought and we'll resume this conversation. Thank you for sharing with us today. And we'll in our next episode we will talk about your healing process. So before healing began, a story had already been written over Pooja's body by authority, by fear, by circumstance, souls. Remember, the story you're given is not the story you have to carry. Authorship begins the moment you decide what stays and what gets rewritten. In the next chapter, you'll hear how Puja reclaimed authorship, redefined her story, and guided her own hill. Journey. If this story stirred something in you, consider what it's awakening in you. Subscribe to continue the journey with us. Share this episode with someone ready to align and keep revising your inner library. One book, one chapter, one page, one line, and one golden truth at a time.