The Accident

I was driving my car to the store on Friday evening June 7, 2013, at 5:00 PM. I was stopping at a red light behind other traffic when I looked up to see a Lexus SUV speeding towards me. My first instinct was to move into the next lane over, but there was no reaction time. By the time I was telling my husband that there was someone coming fast we were already hit. He said I yelled so the words never even came out, neither did any movement on my part to move the car at least from appearances. Had I moved the car towards the other lane I truly believe the hit would have been worse. I was in shock. What I saw visually and what happened were not one and the same. From somewhere behind where I sat in the drivers seat I watched the air bags gently deploy and slowly deflate and go down as if through a fog. It felt like one tremendous hit and I am not sure I really remembered that either. The hood had buckled as we hit the vehicle ahead of us. I sat there in the drivers seat, stunned and realized the car was still running. The car sounded funny and there was a puff of steam or smoke that had a strange odor so I told myself that I better turn it off. I told my husband we better get out. We got out. We walked away from the car. I noticed it was smashed front and back. I tried to call 911 several times, but my phone was giving me an error message. It was really strange. I kept telling people or the air that I couldn’t call 911 and I finally gave up. I texted my son that my car was totaled, maybe even before the police got there. He texted back with questions. I sent him a picture and kept asking if he got it. He finally called. He had got down the road a few miles, like less than 10 miles away so he came back to take care of me. I posted the picture of the car on Facebook. I don’t think it posted the first time so I posted as my status that I used to have a car. I’m not sure that is a normal reaction, but as I was in shock I didn’t really know anything. I was just doing. My son said I needed to take pictures. The police arrived and asked if anyone was hurt. We claimed we were not. I just had a sore left arm and I had no idea why my left arm felt raw and sore. They had us exchange insurance information between the three of us. My son came back and coached me through everything else. He had me call the insurance company. The guy at my insurance company insisted that he could not call the insurance company of the guy who hit me. He said I had to do all that myself. He told me I had to send them (my insurance) the amount of the deductible up front before they would do anything, but he could start the claim over the phone. He asked what happened and then he started badgering me about what I was doing in great detail. That started bringing me out of shock through anger and then the tears started. That’s when it really hit me that I lost my car. I gave the phone to my son and the guy kept insisting that they couldn’t contact the other insurance company for us and that it was illegal for him to do so. My son had been rear ended and had his vehicle totaled in December and he had the same insurance company and they took care of everything for him. The other insurance company then contacted him and made their offers. I don’t know why they wouldn’t do that for me. I still felt no pain other than my arm. It took a few days for the pain to begin and it kept getting worse. I took care of the all the calls to the other insurance company and I got my husband and I checked out at the doctor’s office. They did an MRI on my husband and gave him some pain pills and a muscle relaxer and I got a muscle relaxer. My pain wasn’t horrid at that time. Neck and back pain with burning the length of my back. My right ankle and left big toe hurt. We determined that was from the shoes/flip flop sandals, kind of high and very thick. My left foot ended up bruised across the toe line and the right foot was bruised all the way back to the ankle. The arm was severely bruised and scraped probably from the air bag. My right hip/thigh felt pinched, too. My husband definitely had neck pain and right shoulder through finger pain and numbness. We were very blessed that this is all that happened. My car was demolished both front and rear. The only thing intact was the cabin. The rear doors were pushed forward enough to make one jammed open the other jammed shut. The front doors opened. The car did its job. It had 222,713 hard miles on it and had still almost looked new. It also ran like it was in perfect condition, there was nothing wrong with my car that I know of. It died to save us. The crumple zone worked. Everything worked. We are still getting treatment and we are still having pain and stiffness. I can’t do a lot of stuff without getting sore. I can do things and take a break for a while and do some more and take a break. If I don’t take a break I really pay. Muscles start freezing, neck gets stiffer and the burning in the back comes back. I needed to experience this so that I could have more compassion for people in pain. I had gotten not quite hard, but more hardened to people in pain after my job that I had for eight years that consisted of reading so many medical records of people that had complaints of pain, disease, illnesses that I really thought they wanted to be in pain or sick. I listened to people at work compare their pain and illness. Everywhere around me everyone seemed to be in pain or sick. I didn’t understand. I didn’t realize how numbed to it I had gotten, but I had and this accident was one of my wake up calls. I used to always feel compassion and like part of me felt their pain. That was my strength as a nurse. I had compassion and love for my patients. They knew I cared. When I left nursing I wanted to make people better. When I left my last job I knew what I truly wanted to do. My desire is to make hospitals nearly obsolete. They should only have to be there for emergencies. Illness should not be. I have known for some time that I am a healer. I called myself that many years ago, but didn’t know what it meant or what I was supposed to do. I now see myself helping people through their tribulations, aches, pains and illness to find their happy, healthy place. That is my goal.