It’s not altogether surprising that Priyanka Arunkumar is pondering a future in medicine. After her graduation from Saratoga High School, Priyanka may well follow in the footsteps of her brother, Amit (class of 2007), and attend UC-Berkeley and then medical school at UCSF.

But Priyanka’s career trajectory has possibly been set less by sibling admiration than her own experiences: In the past couple of years, she’s spent a lot of time around doctors.

On a trip to Hawaii during the holidays in her junior year, Priyanka decided to take a surfing lesson. At one point another surfer aimed his board in her direction, cutting her off. She leapt from her own board, and with arms and legs flailing, Priyanka landed knee-first … on the only piece of coral anywhere in the area.

In the first few minutes after making contact with the submerged flora, Priyanka was unaware of any major discomfort. “I thought I had a little cut, and that something was stuck on my leg,” she recalls. “I looked down and realized that the coral had ripped out a big piece of flesh above my knee; I could see down to the bone.”

The injured teen began screaming for Amit, who was surfing nearby. “He said, ‘Priyanka, stop complaining,’ ” she says, now able to laugh about the incident. “Then he saw the blood and realized a piece of my leg was missing and that we needed to get to a doctor immediately.”

The siblings flagged down a ride to a hospital, which luckily was

“After that, another nurse said I was ruining the carpet with my blood, and told me to sit in the hallway. That’s where a doctor happened to find me. He said he would move his schedule back so he could take care of me right away.”

Priyanka’s gaping wound was cleaned out and stitched up. X-rays showed that bits of coral were still embedded in her leg; it would take 12 days or so for full healing. Two days later the site became infected, requiring additional invasive treatment. By the time the varsity tennis team member returned to school, she did so in the wheelchair that would be her source of transportation for nearly four months. Physical therapy followed to strengthen her injured right leg and help her relearn to walk.

Upon her return to school, Priyanka says she found a very sympathetic student body. “Everyone was pretty shocked to see me in the chair. I think the entire campus knew who I was at that point. They were all pretty nice about it, and helped push me when I needed help. Someone nicknamed me ‘Shark Bait’ because the scar on my leg looks like a shark bite.”

Despite her medical mishap, Priyanka managed to complete her junior year with high marks. Her senior year began relatively uneventfully: While enjoying her role as a producer/editor on the Falcons’ multimedia staff, Priyanka successfully juggled a full load of AP classes. The idea of ever missing a day of school was inconceivable.

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