[Ham So-won's Instagram]
[Ham So-won's Instagram]

Broadcaster Ham So-won, who spent nearly two months in the hospital after crashing into a utility pole while parking, has opened up about the anguish she felt during that time — an ordeal she said made her reflect on her entire life.

On Tuesday, Ham shared her memories of the accident on Instagram. "It felt like a fleeting dream — a single vivid dream," she wrote. "But it was a dream that gave me profound insight. What on earth happened in the span of five minutes, or three, or even just one?"

Recalling the moment of the crash, she said, "I was lying on the ground and could not get up. No matter how hard I tried to straighten my legs or move, I simply could not."

She then described the relief she felt upon seeing her daughter. "I looked up at the sky and saw Hyejeong's face. She was crying and calling out 'Mom.' I thought, 'Thank goodness — my baby is safe. Hyejeong, don't cry. Mom is okay.'"

Ham asked her daughter to find her grandmother's number on her phone and call her. Young Hyejeong not only reached her grandmother but also sought help from neighbors.

"What a relief," Ham wrote. "I said, 'Please look after Hyejeong until Grandma arrives,' and then I got into the ambulance."

Even as she rode to the hospital, her worry for her family outweighed her physical pain. "The pain was real, but the worry came first," she said. "My mother is 77 — it would be so hard for her to look after Hyejeong alone." She added that she could sense from the atmosphere inside the ambulance just how seriously she had been hurt and how much danger she was in.

"I prayed to my God," Ham wrote. "I have a 9-year-old daughter. And I have a 77-year-old mother. Please don't let me commit the act of an unfilial child by leaving before my own parent."

She went on to receive treatment in the hospital for an extended period. "I think I lost consciousness while praying," she said. "I have no idea how I got to the hospital. I was so cold and in so much pain, and my consciousness kept fading in and out." She said she spent just under two months receiving treatment there.

After finally returning home, she said the experience prompted her to look back on her life. "Coming home after being discharged felt truly like waking from a dream," she wrote. "The everyday life I have now made me realize that the 50 years I have lived until now were as sweet as a dream."

"On the first day back, I looked at the mountains and thought: a fleeting spring dream," she continued. "The love I gave, the marriage, the work — all of it was sweet. And the day I gave birth to my child was as sweet as being inside a jar of honey." She added that as she lay in pain at the hospital and looked back on her life one moment at a time, she found it had been filled with nothing but happiness for 50 dream-like years.

Ham was involved in the accident in July, when her car struck a utility pole while she was parking on a downhill slope. She was diagnosed with a pelvic fracture and underwent surgery at a hospital in Seoul.


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