'Thank God I'm not dead': Malala's first thought after attack

London, Oct 6: "Thank God I'm not dead", was the first thought that came to the mind of a terrified Pakistani teenage rights activist Malala Yousufzai on waking up in a British hospital after being shot in the head by the Taliban.

Malala, 16, has stated this in her autobiography "I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban", according to extracts of the book published in the Sunday Times.

In the extracts from her book which is to be published on Tuesday, Malala, the front-runner to win the Nobel Peace Prize to be announced on October 11, said she remembered almost nothing of the attack that took place on October 9 last year.

In the book, she gives an elaborate account of the time when she woke up in the hospital after the attack, saying, "I woke on October 16, a week after the shooting.

The first thing I thought was, 'Thank God I'm not dead'. "All sorts of questions flew through my waking brain: where was I? Who had brought me there? Where were my parents? Was my father alive? I was terrified. The only thing I knew was that Allah had blessed me with a new life," Malala is quoted as saying in the book by the paper.

Malala also gives an account of the deadly Taliban attack which was narrated to her by friends who witnessed the attack. Describing the attack, Malala writes in the book that "a young bearded man stepped into the road and waved the van down.

Malala is the front-runner to win the Nobel Peace Prize on October 11.

As he was speaking to the driver another young man approached the back. "The man was wearing a peaked cap and had a handkerchief over his nose and mouth as if he had flu. He looked like a college student. He swung himself onto the tailboard at the back and leaned in right over us," Malala writes.

She then says that the man then demanded "Who is Malala?". "No one said anything, but several of the girls looked at me.

I was the only girl with my face not covered.

That's when he lifted up a black pistol, a Colt .45. Some of the girls screamed. My friends say he fired three shots.

The first went through my left eye socket and out under my left shoulder," she writes.

PTI