Today in History—September 17: Frida Kahlo’s Life-Changing Accident

On this day in 1925, 18-year-old Frida Kahlo forgot her umbrella. This tiny oversight changed the trajectory of her life.

She and her boyfriend got off the bus to look for it. Their search was unsuccessful, and they promptly boarded a second bus. “Because of the tiny little umbrella I was very sad,” Kahlo would later say.

The driver of that bus crossed in front of an electric streetcar, which hit the wooden bus and dragged it along, crumpling it. Several people were killed by the impact, and others later died from their injuries.

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Kahlo was on her way home from the National Preparatory School in Mexico City, where she’d been one of only 35 women accepted to study medicine. Already showing promising art skills, she planned to become a medical illustrator.

She survived the accident, but she suffered multiple fractures and was impaled by an iron handrail through her hip and pelvis. Her spine was broken in three places. Her foot was crushed.

After the accident, she remained encased in plaster casts for months, largely immobilized and often bedridden. The pain—which would haunt her for the rest of her life and affect her ability to bear children—was part of what turned her toward painting.

Kahlo’s father, Guillermo, was a photographer who’d also been plagued by illness and pain, and he tended to her during her recovery. He also encouraged her to expand her interest in art. She started with the self-portraits for which she’d eventually become known, painting her image from a mirror attached to the canopy while stuck in bed.

Soon, art was more than just a way to pass the time. In 1938 Kahlo held her first solo exhibition in New York. It was a success.

She would eventually become one of Mexico’s most famed artists—though her first solo show in her country wouldn’t come until 1953. By then, her health had worsened, and she arrived at the show in an ambulance. She died the following year, but her reputation continued to grow after her death.