If you ask Derek who has the worst luck, he would probably name me. What happened was that I technically got splashed with hot water… by myself. Yes, a bit hilarious when talking about carrying a whole basin of hot water to be brought upstairs. My house didn’t have hot water, hence me grabbing and filling up a basin with it manually.

The thing is, my parents had told me that the very staircase where I slipped and fell had been rotten for quite some time, and that was probably why my foot slipped. I was just unfortunate enough for it to happen when I had the hot water pot in my hands. The way I slipped was forward and the bottom of the pot hit the staircase first which had most of the water splashing towards me as my chest started kissing the hot water basin too.

Not only was I suffering from being splashed, I literally fell down the staircase at that too. I remember my mum came rushing to me after hearing the loud bang of the basin falling, and having some medical/first-aid experience, she immediately went straight for burnt-skin first aid with cold water and all to help reduce any further injuries, and the fact that the doctor told me once how shocked he was seeing how I survived because normally no patient makes it when it comes to my case.

The sting, I remember how painful it was. My whole face, neck and chest and even my thighs were burnt by the water. I went as red as a tomato, melting like hot cheese even. In fact, I was so in pain that I couldn’t speak for a whole 30 minutes, all in shock and hurt and a bit confused with reality, that was how bad it felt. The doctor told us that the degree of my pain out of ten was an eight, since I couldn’t interact, barely responding with a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ only, and slipping in and out of consciousness. I could barely open my eyes, the skin on my eyelid had peeled off due to the melt that it suffered, but I was also lucky enough I didn’t lose my eyesight entirely and I just had to do plastic surgery not to enhance beauty but to fix the structure of my face and skin. Until today, I still remembered the burn I felt from just having to hold a pen to sign the papers. It sounds ridiculous, but the sting really had lingered long enough I didn’t think I could hold a pen anymore.

However, thanks to having insurance from Prudential, my agent, Derek, had helped with the documents and I didn’t need to sign the rest of the papers by myself and not have me suffer just from lifting a pen and making strokes. There was this thing called a guaranteed letter that was used so that Derek could settle the documentation on my behalf, and no lies when I say he had done everything very diligently and fast that it was settled within a period of time. I was also so glad that I had signed up for an unlimited policy, and when my doctor asked to what extent I would what to get treated (because the more I proceed with, the higher it costs, which isn’t a surprise), I told him to proceed with whatever he could do, and thanks to this policy, too, I was able to receive a good bed in my own hospital room, a better treatment as well as a new bandage dressing every two days that was initially supposed to be done once a week to save cost. But having the entire body wrapped up in bandages like a mummy, frequent dressings was obviously better than not. Say, the plastic surgery itself had cost at least RM70k, the whole treatment cost most likely had reached six-digits.

Without this insurance, I’m probably either bedridden until today, or I would have been permanently losing eyesight from my eyelids not functioning, or worse. So, thank you again I would love to say to Derek and Prudential for being there for me when I needed it the most, and my family and I will continue supporting the company as much as you have supported us.