A senior student of the University of California, Berkeley, Bandna Bhatti, has been left paralyzed from her waist down after she fell from a metal staircase at the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity house during a party. The Indian-origin family has reached out for help on GoFundMe and raised over $97,000 for Bhatti’s treatment.Her family is hopeful that she will be able to walk again. But the tragedy took place on April 29, weeks before her graduation in data science.
How did Bandna fall? Why there’s a police investigation going on
The incident took place during the day when her frat house was hosting a party on ‘Cal Day’ when the campus is thrown open to prospective students. According to reports, Bhatti fell at least 12 feet from an external metal stairway hitting her head and landing in a narrow alleyway. She got a spinal fracture, a torn dura with leaking spinal fluid, a scapular fracture, and a brain hematoma. Laterm sge was diagnosed to have been paralyzed below the waist.
Police investigation is going on as bhatti got medical treatment at least seven hours after the fall. For the first 15 minutes, she lay there undiscovered before being found by her friends. When they took her insider the fraternity house, the fraternity members told them to leave. With no one having any idea of the severity of her injuries, she was taken to a nearby apartment. It wasn’t until seven hours after the incident that 911 was finally called.
“Our beloved sister, Bandna, only 21 years old, was just three weeks away from graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in Data Science – a milestone she had worked so hard for – when our world was turned upside down. She is now paralyzed from the waist down. These injuries are not only life-altering but will require extensive and ongoing medical care, including physical therapy, rehabilitation, and specialized support to help her navigate this new chapter,” her family wrote in a statement on GoFundMe.
