Nawang Khechog recovering well

News :: 2007

By Lobsang Wangyal

MCLEOD GANJ, India, 28 February 2007 — Nawang Khechog is out of danger and is being treated in Max Hospital in Delhi after he met with a near-fatal accident on the eve of Losar, the Tibetan New Year, on 17 February.

The accident took place while he was going to his family in Orissa Tibetan settlement from Bubaneshwar in eastern India. Khechog was travelling with his son Sangye Tenzin and niece Pema Chodon.

Their Tata Sumo taxi collided with a Tata transport truck around 12.15 p.m. about 50 kms before arriving to the settlement.

Khechog was critically wounded in the head. The driver was killed on the spot, while Chodon breathed her last a little later after the accident, confirmed Tenzin, who only had minor injury on his head. "I am beyond lucky to have survived such an accident," Tenzin, who is now in Mcleod Ganj, says.

Khechog was seated in the front, while his son Sangye Tenzin and niece Pema Chodon were sitting in the back seats.

Chodon applied to be a Miss Tibet participant in the Miss Tibet pageant 2006, but had to withdraw after receiving orders from the Indian government. She was in the Indian army.

"My cousin was singing a Hindi song while stroking my head as I was lying on her lap, and she smiled before I went to sleep," recalled Tenzin.

Tenzin woke up to a shocking scene but quickly began to act. "I woke up my father. He was in a pool of blood. My cousin was also covered with blood. After I said 'I love you', she breathed her last."

Khechog was in and out of consciousness for three days in a hospital in Bubaneshwar. He was later moved to Max Hospital in Delhi where he is currently being treated. Hollywood actor Richard Gere, a friend of Khechog, paid for the flight to Delhi.

Wife Tsering speaking from Delhi said, "Nawang Khechog is out of danger now. The doctors said 'It's a miracle that he survived such an accident.' He is responding well to the treatment. He is able to walk and talk now. The doctors are also providing physiotherapy."

"It's like getting a second life for my father," Tenzin says, who was born from Khechog's first marriage to an Australian.

Khechog had 20 concerts scheduled in Korea in the month of April, which are all cancelled now.

Nawang Khechog is a Grammy nominee and one of Tibet's foremost world music composer and musician. He lives in Boulder, Colorado in the US.