Twenty-year-old Indian dental student Kanika Dembla regained consciousness this week in a foreign land, seemingly alone.
Sunday morning, a head-on collision in Tennessee's Smokey Mountains killed Kanika's parents and 26-year-old brother Ashish— a popular Georgia Tech PhD candidate — and left her with serious back and neck injuries.
Officials at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville didn't know if Kanika, whose condition stabilized Thursday, had any family members left to contact.
Finally, according to Pallavi Bhatt, a lab technician at the hospital, Kanika's uncle called her brother's cell phone to ask how the family's vacation in Pigeon Forge had gone. A nurse answered and told him the tragic news.
The close-knit family had just checked out of their condo and were headed back to Ashish's home in Atlanta when his Honda Civic was hit head-on by a truck that had crossed the center line on Wears Valley Road in Sevier County, Tenn.
The driver, Shaun Bowman, 27, told troopers he thinks he had fallen asleep behind the wheel. He was discharged from UT Medical Center on Friday, according to a hospital official, and could face criminal charges.
Kanika, meanwhile, faces a long recovery, though that is something of a miracle considering the severity of the accident.
She will have the support of Knoxville's Hindi community, which has stepped up to provide room, board and meals for the friends and relatives who have made their way to Tennessee, according to Jim Ragones, a spokesman for the medical center.
These strangers have even taken care of the cremation of Ashish and his parents, Satpal and Anjali Dembla, both doctors.
"This is what people are supposed to do," Bhatt told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "We are trying to be her extended family when she needs it most."
Bhatt said Kanika, who faces extensive physical rehabilitation, doesn't remember the accident but is aware her parents and older brother didn't survive it.
"She's still trying to process everything," Bhatt said. "I think she's still in shock that her family is gone."
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