It seems relatively ironic that on the day of "the accident" I was heading to the gym to do laps around the jogging trail with a friend in the hopes of improving my physical fitness. Irony has a way of slapping you on the back before the accident as well since it was that very day I'd gone to my doctor to ask about the shoulder that was literally killing me and preventing me from doing the regular water aerobics class I'd started with a friend about three months before. We loved that class! But when I added in swimming laps I must have done something to the shoulder muscle attached to the arm and I couldn't lift the arm up over my head without pain. I'd gone to the doctor in the hopes that she would give me some kind of X-ray or MRI to see what was going on and was told by the PA, not the doctor, to take some time, let it rest, take anti inflammatories and if it is not better in two weeks to come back. I thought at the time it was a waste of a visit because I had done just that, taken a rest, taken pills and not over taxed it for well over three weeks at that point, but oh well, I humored the PA and left. That day was our normal night of working out and my friend was generous enough to work out before and was going to walk with me because I was so limited in what I could do at the gym because of the arm.
So the true irony of this is that had I been going to my regular aerobics water class, I would have been on the road about 15 minutes ahead of the time I actually left the house. 15 minutes earlier and I would have been through the intersection and on my way to working out and having fun. What a difference 15 minutes can make and did as it turned out.
"The accident" happened like a slow motion film on the slowest level it can go. I reacted relatively quickly to it but it all slowed down as it happened. I have to say I'm thankful for pain not being an issue during the slow downed version of the accident. I can honestly say it has to be a protective mechanism in our human bodies that allows for pain to be held off until much later in the process.
The vision I have is of a car moving in front of me. Crossing my path. The unreality of it is the light was green for me, so I couldn't figure out why she was in my lane, facing horizontally to me, going to my right. The road dead ended that way, my light was green, I'd even accelerated to go through the intersection and I was probably only about 15 minutes away from home and 15 minutes from the gym. I remember looking at the driver as she hunched over the wheel of her car staring ahead, she didn't see me, she wasn't aware that I was barreling towards her. At the last second I must have realized that I had to get away from her because I swerved to the right and as I later said to the police I tried to avoid her but couldn't. Witnesses at the scene told the police and my husband that I'd done nothing wrong, the light was green and she ran the red light.
If you have seen movies or been at the scene of an accident there is such a surreal feeling to it all. There is glass, smoke, haze, bent metal, lights, darkness, pain, fear, confusion and panic. Panic was when i couldn't get out of the car, fear was when I saw the smoke and felt the heat of the car, darkness because it was almost six thirty and it was getting dark and confusion at first because I truly had no idea what had happened at first, as if I couldn't quite grasp that I was in a terrible accident.
I remember pushing on the door and realizing that it wouldn't open. It then dawned on me that when I moved my arm there was excruciating pain and I hazarded looking down and seeing it mishap pen and thinking, oh no, it's broken. Not again. I'd just had an injury to the arm falling and had to have surgery and all I could think of was, this isn't good. Then I saw people and the air bags were all deployed and the light on my dash was still on. I pulled the keys out and the phone was still on so I reached over and called my husband Bob! Can you imagine the thought of calling in the midst of an crushed car and telling someone you've been in a terrible accident at about five minutes after it just happened. Needless to say he could hear the panic in my voice and the scream of the words I've been in a terrible accident. He was there in less than ten minutes. There was a lady who reached in to help me out but as I moved I realized my neck was killing me and I said, no my neck I can't move and she said, well then stay there and the rescue will be there soon. She reached in and held my hand and asked if she could pray with me and I said yes. I needed the assurance that it would be ok, I was near tears and panic and mad at the world for this to have happened. I just wanted to get in shape and be ok and feel great and do the things I wanted to do or hoped to do. The why of this just kept coming up to me and hitting me in the heart. But if this lady was praying for me for healing and health, then I was going to ask God for the same thing and I did and felt a peace come over me as she prayed.
Some of the things that remain with me is hearing the police talking to the lady who hit me. She somehow ended up in the back of my car talking to them. Her level of panic was escalating and they kept telling her she needed to calm down and tell them what happened. She managed to eke out the explanation and didn't deny that she had run the red light. She said she was concerned about me and they told her to take care of herself and that people were helping me. I remember the other witness getting into the car and asking me questions and then finally I could hear the ambulance coming and the lights of the fire trucks blinking red.
They moved her car and I could hear the scraping all along the length of my car and then the EMT climbed into the car to assess my injuries and where I felt pain and discomfort. The guy was reaching around me and jostling my arm and I screamed probably in his ear. It hurt like the dickens.
They opened my driver's side door and finally I felt like I was going to escape and get away from this accident. It was creating fear in me that the car was going to explode and I would be there not able to get out. They lifted and carried me out with a brace on my neck and then onto a flat board and then a barrage of faces peered over me and started asking me where I wanted to go and it became a discussion of which one would be better as a trauma unit and orthopedic center and so I decided on the one that was a trauma hospital. It had to be the furthest away of course! A potentially long drive with broken bones and pain, oh joy~
Funny how you think of strange things when you are going through this kind of thing. I kept wondering as I waited in the smashed up car and as they cut all the airbags away, well, will they be able to fix all those? I mean it's going to be expensive to do that. Strange thought I know, but that's how my mind works at times. The other funny thing was I was so pleased that the car phone was working but then I thought, where the heck is my phone? And how was the car able to be "on" when I'd shut it off and taken out the key and why was my passenger door completely unable to open and why was the lady in my car talking to the police? Who were all these people out there watching the goings on and how many fireman does it take to handle one accident and why isn't my arm hurting more and my neck in a brace?
In my life I've traveled on a few ambulance rides, not many thank God but those that I have been on make me panic a bit because you are now in an enclosed, bright, cold and hard surfaced vehicle with a guy who is holding on and supplies and monitors all around you and you could almost feel claustrophobic in the confines of such a place. You are also strapped down, on a board, with straps that cover your shoulders, lower legs and neck area…imagine feeling this and wanting to get up or be sick?
My first question to them is what if I need to vomit and their answer is, we'll spin you over? What? Spin me? I'm not exactly sure how that is going to work so I pray I don't get sick.
The ride is not really long but it feels like it and I keep asking the EMT where are we on the hospital run? Where on the road are we? What road have we crossed? How much further. I think that if I know where we are that will make me feel better but instead I feel worse because it just serves to show me how out of control of the situation I am and what lies in store for me.
We arrive and it's a full house. Parking for all emergency vehicles is so limited that they are parking in the regular parking areas and hoofing it over with the gurneys to the main entrance. This does not make me comfortable in the least and I know that I'm in for a long, long night.
It was a long night.
