Hong Kong woman was crippled and then faced heartache as her husband left her; she now flies like an eagle
Susanna Tang is nominated for an Overcoming Personal Challenge Award in the Spirit of Hong Kong Awards for all the volunteer work she has done since her horrific traffic accident in 1988
In 1988, a 28-year-old woman was caught in a serious traffic accident.
She awoke 20 bags of blood and hours of surgery later, missing an arm and a leg, wrapped up like a mummy, with tubes connecting her to machines like a science fiction horror show.
That’s only the first of the major obstacles life has thrown at Susanna Tang Ying-lan, whose nickname these days is “Flying Eagle”. And she’s leapt over every one of them with her one remaining arm and leg.
She went home seven agonising months later, feeling hopeless and hideous – “like a worm” – after doctors ruled it was impossible to fit her with prosthetics. Tang explains: “A third of my pelvic bone was crushed, and back then such devices weighed a lot” – too much for her small, fragile body to carry. “I broke down sobbing every time I saw myself in the mirror.”
Over months, her family supported her through her recovery, as did her boyfriend who refused to leave her, “even though I’d suggested breaking up because I didn’t want to be a burden.”
He gradually encouraged her to leave her room, finding her a safe place at church to re-enter the world, and insisted on marrying her.
But his parents were extremely opposed to the relationship. “They thought, how could a broken woman like me look after their son?” As she learned to live with her new body, her in-laws would find her extra challenges, such as bringing her a whole chicken to cook for dinner.
All the while, Tang had to fight superstition. The old folks from her New Territories village did not like seeing her in a wheelchair, believing it was bad luck.
So Tang learned to hop up on her one right leg, and to chop up and cook a whole chicken with her one right arm. Pok Oi Hospital pioneered her prosthetic limbs, with which she cleaned the house, knitted sweaters, worked as a home tutor and volunteered.
Her perseverance paid off; she won everyone over. And despite many difficulties, in 1993, she gave birth to a beautiful, healthy daughter, whom she bathed and fed herself to build a mother-child bond, which has lasted until today.
“I then realised, I wasn’t a worm, I was a caterpillar. I just needed some time in my cocoon to transform into a butterfly.”
But the man who once led her out of darkness then cast a huge shadow over her life. Tang’s husband decided to leave her and their young daughter. “You know, the worst kind of pain is when you can’t even cry,” she says quietly.
During Tang’s volunteering, she worked with many women going through broken marriages. “Since I’d offered advice so many times for those women to stop wallowing in the past and their pain, I figured I had to walk that walk myself.”
So, finding strength in her Christian faith, she learned how best to be a single parent herself, while working with those who needed support. She reached out to other women in single families, ethnic minorities, young convicts; even visiting survivors of the Sichuan earthquake, many of whom had lost limbs in the tragedy.
The Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association has nominated Tang, 56, for an Overcoming Personal Challenge Award in the South China Morning Post’s Spirit of Hong Kong Awards.
Tang didn’t just stand up straight in the face of life’s challenges, she soared like a flying eagle.
