When doctors declared Amitabh Bachchan critically dead. It is known that Amitabh Bachchan suffered serious injuries while shooting for his film Coolie on 2 August 1982.
The accident happened when he was shooting an action sequence with Puneet Issar at the Bangalore University campus. He suffered injuries in the abdominal region which resulted in internal hemorrhage and bleeding.
Amitabh Bachchan once recollected “I was in a coma. I had ruptured my intestine in the accident on the set. And then there was the surgery which was conducted almost as an emergency. We went to Bombay 5 days later, the sutures ruptured, and I had to have another surgery. It was the end of that surgery where I couldn’t come out of anesthesia for 12-14 hours. That’s when they felt it was all over because there was hardly any pulse, BP was down to almost zero.”
Jaya Bachchan, recollecting her ordeal shared "When I had reached the hospital where my brother-in-law said, “Where were you, we were searching for you? We have been looking for you?” And I said I went home to see the kids. Then he sort of took me up, he asked me to be brave and then I am going to tell you. I was like, no it’s not possible, he’s not going to do this. I know it’s not possible. I had the prayer book in my hand, hanuman chalisa. Dr. Dastoor passed by and said, ‘It’s only your prayers that’ll help.’ But I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t see what they were doing but I could see that they were pumping his heart, they were giving him injections. And after they gave up, I saw his toe move, and I said, ‘He moved, he moved.’ And then he revived."