Amitabh Bachchan On His Near-Fatal Accident On Coolie Sets : 'I Never Knew That I Was Going To Die...'

Amitabh Bachchan expressed his gratitude to fans for their warm wishes on August 2, a day he calls his “second birthday.” It marks 42 years since he returned home after surviving a life-threatening accident during the filming of Coolie. The accident took place in 1983 during the shoot of a Manmohan Desai film. During a fight scene with actor Puneet Issar, Bachchan was supposed to fall onto a table but instead struck its edge, resulting in a severe abdominal injury. The injury was so critical that he was declared clinically dead for a few minutes before being revived and undergoing multiple surgeries on a ventilator. After spending several months in critical condition, Bachchan finally returned home on August 2, a day now celebrated as his ‘second birthday’ across the country.

“My love and greetings for all your blessings for the 2nd of August .. I am unable to reply to them individually .. so accept this as my response .. blessed ❤️ I shall make an effort though time permitting,” the screen icon posted on X.

The Bollywoodirect film account shared old footage of Amitabh Bachchan having an “emotional reunion” with his family, months after his near-fatal accident.

In a throwback interview with Doordarshan, Bachchan said, “I am grateful, most of all, to all you people, who have prayed for me, my life. Be it in a temple, a mosque, or a church. I don’t know so many of you, yet you prayed for me and I am grateful for that. The least I can do now is live up to your expectations. I will try, I will try very hard. Thank you.”

In a past interview with Stardust, Amitabh Bachchan talked about the accident and what he felt afterward. He said he never realised he was close to dying. He knew something was seriously wrong but didn’t know how bad it was. “See, I never knew that I was going to die. I knew that there was something very wrong with me but I never knew that I was going to die. And the entire period when I was seemingly gone, when I was struggling for life, I was in a state of coma. I was unconscious. That was a difficult period for my family. It was easy for me because I was oblivious. The difficult period for me started after I got okay. When you’re told what you’ve been through. And it’s not enough that you’ve been told,” he had said.