ACCIDENTS like deaths occur like thieves in the night.
Filipino actress and beauty queen Maria Isabel Lopez has just gone through the ordeal days before she’d attend the premiere screening of her film in Los Angeles, California.
Maria Isabel recently figured in a car mishap miles away from the venue of the movie premiere but it was still the same state emergency management applied to her when she was driving along a highway in Sebastopol, CA and met the car crash.
According to Lopez, she was already five minutes away from home as she was driving Gravenstein Highway at the corner of Hessel Road in Sebastopol when she collided with another car on the opposite lane.
“Things happened so fast. My iPhone said ‘This is an emergency.’ My airbag burst! Side window airbags, too. The door couldn’t be opened from inside. Ambulance came and I was brought to Kaiser Santa Rosa,” recalled Maribel in an exclusive oline interview.
“CT scan showed I had ruptured my small intestines,” said the actress and 1982 Binibining Pilipinas-Universe.
“So, I was in surgery. Doctors removed 70cm of my intestines,” she added.
After a few days, an inflammation occurred. “They saw an abscess in my abdomen so I had another procedure to ‘aspirate’ it,” Maribel remembered.
Lopez stayed thirteen days in the hospital.
“Now I’m back home with a wound vacuum in my abdomen to speed the healing process,” she shared.
At the moment, she is thankful she was saved from total wreck. “I praise God for ‘my second life.’ Grateful that I can walk. To God be the glory,” Maribel smiled.
At the time of the accident, she was preparing to go to LA for the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF) for the premiere showing of her Japanese film “Diamonds in the Sand” where she plays a Filipino caregiver to Yogi, a divorced Japanese man who chooses to go to Manila because he believes that no one is lonely in the Philippines.
The film is scheduled for showing on May 2, 2026.
“But the doctors didn’t allow me,” regretted Maribel.