On April 24, 2003, Austin Duncan ’02, was traveling around Egypt with his friend Ningchuan Zhu ’02 while on a break from his Fulbright-funded research in Kuwait. The two had spent the day wandering around Cairo before taking a train to Luxor. Duncan remembers crossing the Corniche, a promenade along the east bank of the Nile, and walking toward the Luxor Temple. He turned and shouted back to Zhu, “Stop being scared and just cross the road.”
That’s the moment everything went blank.
A mirror on the side of a bus hit Duncan’s head, sending him flying several feet into the air. Zhu came running to find him unconscious and bleeding in the middle of the Corniche. A British nurse eating lunch across the street rushed over, instructing Zhu to take his shirt off and wrap it around Duncan’s head. The police arrived. Duncan was taken to a hospital in Luxor, then transported to one in Cairo and, later, two in the U.S.
Duncan had suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and didn’t regain consciousness for more than a month. His first memory after the accident is of his 23rd birthday, on June 7, 2003. He remembers sitting on the grass outside a hospital in Seattle, Wash., his IVs still connected, surrounded by his parents and former Williams classmates from Woodbridge House: Kari Sutherland ’02, Ronit Stahl ’02, Rachel Seys ’02 and Abigail Rosenthal ’02. Some had been visiting Duncan since his transfer to the U.S., while he was still unconscious.
Profile written for Williams College.