RHOA’s Tanya Sam spent two days in the hospital, where she was diagnosed with acute trauma and gastrointestinal bleeding due to a recent car accident. Read more about what happened during that scary moment below via People.
Real Housewives of Atlanta‘s Tanya Sam is “back in the swing of things” following a terrifying car accident.
After spending two days in the hospital as a result of the crash, the Bravo star is opening up to PEOPLE about the scary moment.
“In the movies, time slows down and it truly slowed down. I could see the car coming. I could feel our speed, and my brain is going ‘We are not going to clear this car!’ I remember starting to scream and BAM!” Sam recalls of the terrifying moment last week. “We kind of bulldozed through the car.”
Sam, 33, says she was riding in an Uber Black alongside her fiancé, Dr. Paul Judge, when the crash occurred while they were heading to the Wearable Art Gala. The other vehicle was “pretty much totaled and completely wrecked” after she says it was T-boned by the Uber vehicle.
PEOPLE reached out to Uber for comment.
“We were really, really shaken,” she says.
While Judge — co-founder of company Pindrop — only reported some back pain, passengers in both cars were left visibly uninjured, Sam says.
Though her stomach was swollen and achy, she brushed off the symptoms.
“I was tired, dizzy. I started taking Airborne thinking, I’m getting something from travel and got through the whole gala,” she says. “I literally left the gala and was like, ‘I’m really not feeling well.’ I got back to my hotel and started vomiting.”
“I panicked for a minute. My husband was holding my hair and he was like, ‘Maybe it’s food poisoning.’ And I’m a nurse — nurses are the worst patients because they’re always like, ‘This isn’t a big deal,’ ” she says.
Less than an hour later, she noticed blood in her stool.
“I was like ‘We’re going to the hospital,’ ” she recalls.
Sam and Judge headed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she says the doctors ran some test scans and diagnosed her with intestinal and gastrointestinal bleeding, along with an acute trauma injury from the seat belt.
At the hospital, Sam’s sister, who lives on the west coast, came to take care of her alongside her fiancé. “The love is real, the dog is fake,” she captioned an Instagram photo on Thursday. “Thank you both for taking such good care of me.”
Though she believes the seat belt might have caused some minor internal injuries, Sam says the accident could’ve been much worse if she hadn’t put it on.
“When we started that Uber ride, we weren’t wearing our seat belts and then I was like, ‘Babe, let’s put on our seat belts,’ ” she says. “Ten minutes later we got into the accident.”
Now, the Toronto-born reality TV star says she is thankful to the doctors and her fans for the outpouring of support.
“So many people sent me notes of concern, saying get well soon, sending positive vibes,” she says. “I’m feeling so much better.”
While she recovers and takes some medication to finish healing (she says she didn’t bruise), Sam says her main takeaway is to “listen to your body.”
“I knew I was tired, I was getting dizzy, all these little things. You’re just such a hard worker that you soldier through it,” she says. “I just should’ve listened earlier to my body and put two and two together. It literally was crying out for help.”
Thank God she’s okay now.
