On February 3, 2007, I got up and got ready to do what I did almost every Saturday, which was going to visit with Mom and Dad. I was a cold morning, with a bit of snow on the ground. My usual routine was to take my 2005 Crown Victoria. Seeing that I lived out in the middle of nowhere on a gravel road, I decided that I might want to take my old 1987 Chevy pickup, which was four wheel drive.
It was around 10am when I finally got on the road. The gravel road that I lived on was covered with snow, but I made it out to Grahn Hill, for those of you who know where that is. I made it about a third of the way down next to the Baptist Church when I saw this SUV traveling toward me at a high rate of speed on my side of the road. I was quick to react, but it didn't help. I slammed on my breaks and headed toward the ditch and the side of the hill next to the church. Unfortunately, the driver of the SUV decided to follow me into the ditch. He ended up hitting me almost head on.
I was stunned. This was the loudest sound that I have ever heard in my life. I remember trying to catch my breath and I could hear myself moaning. Once my head cleared, I looked over at the SUV, which had ended up beside me, but I didn't see any movement. I then tried to get out of my truck, but couldn't get the driver's side door open. It didn't help that I couldn't use my right arm very well, but I figured that I just sprained my wrist.
At his point, I figured that I better call Mom and let her know that I was going to be late because I had been in an accident. She was babysitting my nephews for the weekend, but said she would be right there. I told her that I was fine and there was no need to come out there and that I would get a ride back home with someone and get my car.
Since I was not able to get out of the driver side door, I decided to scoot across the bench seat and try the passenger door. While sliding across the seat, I noticed that my chainsaw, which I had just gotten at a pawn shop, had flown out of the seat next to me and the entire bar was embedded in the floor of the truck's cab. That should give you an idea of how hard the impact was.
I was able to get the passenger door open and climbed out of the truck into the ditch. By the time I had done this, some people who had heard the accident where there to see if we were alright. These people had called 911 and said that help was on the way, but had not checked on the other driver.
I went over to the driver's side of the SUV to check on the other driver. The driver was up underneath the dash of his vehicle. He was coming to after being knocked unconscious and was trying to get out. I told him to stay where he was and had to try to keep him where he was. This was hard to do with one arm, and I still hadn't bothered to look at my wrist.
I could tell the other driver was in bad shape and needed help. About that time, the Fire Chief, who I had known forever, was the first rescuer to arrive. He took over taking care of this other driver and right after that, other firemen and the EMTs arrived.
I figured that there wasn't anything else for me to do, so I went over and stood near my truck with some of the people who had gathered around to look at the accident. About that time, the Fire Chief came and asked if I knew where the guy was that was driving the white truck. I told him it was me and he just stared at me in disbelief. He told me that I needed to let the EMT take a look at me.
I let the EMT look at my wrist and told him that I just figured that it was sprained. He took one look at it and said no, it wasn't sprained. This was the first look that I got of it. My right wrist and about six inches of my forearm were swollen very badly. He told me that my arm was broken and that I needed to go to the hospital.
I got up into the back of the ambulance and sat down. After they closed the door, I looked out the back window and saw my Mom and Dad, along with my nephews. At that point, I was really glad that I called my mother. Once she saw my truck, she would have thought that I was hurt really badly. I told her that I was fine and that I would call my best friend Jennifer to come get me at the hospital and give me a ride home after I got my cast.
The EMT let me sit on the gurney in the back of the ambulance as we traveled to King's Daughters Medical Center, instead of laying down. I decided to take this time to call Jennifer to ask her to meet me at the hospital, since she lived right next to it.
After I had finished my call, I started to feel a burning in my chest. I looked down my shirt and saw that the right side of my chest was a little swollen. I told the EMT and he looked at it and said that the seat belt had probably just bruised me.
Once we got to the hospital, they made me lay down on the gurney, since it was policy. Good thing was, that since I came in an ambulance, I didn't have to wait in the waiting room. I was able to go directly back to the exam room.
My friend Jennifer was there waiting for me when I got to the hospital. We told them that she was my wife, so she would be able to stay back there with me and help fill out the paperwork and sign for me. I hope they don't come after us for fraud.
While they were doing the x-ray on my arm, I started getting really dizzy and felt like I was going to faint. I don't think I have ever felt like that before. The x-ray technicians saw what was going on laid me back on the gurney.
When I got back to the exam room, this rude little woman, who ended up being the doctor, came into the room to see me. She looked at the x-ray and said the radius bone was broken into 6 pieces and that I would need emergency surgery.
After discussing this surgery, the doctor asked if I had anything else going on from the accident. The nurse told her that I had almost passed out while getting the x-ray done. I told her that the right side of my chest was burning and that it was swelling. She immediately pulled up my shirt and looked at my chest, which was about the size of a softball by this time.
After yelling at the nurse for not telling her about this, she proceeded to cut off my LL Bean barn coat and Tommy Bahama t-shirt. I was heart broken to lose both of those items. She laid me flat on the gurney and told them to take me for a CAT Scan STAT! I didn't know what was going on at this point.
The doctor starts explaining to me that I may have a lacerated heart and that I might be bleeding into my chest. She said if this was true, that I would have to have emergency open heart surgery. Thousands of thoughts were going through my head and I was so glad that Jennifer was there to help me.
After having the CAT Scan, the doctor met me back in the room. She told me that my heart was fine and that the seat belt had torn the muscles in my chest. This had caused the blood to pool in my chest. By this time, the pain meds and kicked in and I was telling the nurses that I had one breast implant and was here to get the other one done. The things I say on pain meds. I think Cyndi likes me better when I drugged up.
The orthopedic surgeon comes into the room and tells me that he will be doing my surgery and that I will have to spend the night in the hospital. So much for getting a ride home and going on to Mom and Dad's.
Once out of surgery, I woke up with this huge external fixator and a brace on my right arm. The doctor informed my that he had to put in a metal plate and eight screws to put the bones back together. He said that I had a lot of damage and that it was going to take a while to heal up. He also said that I would only have 75% use of my arm when it was all said and done and that I would end up with arthritis since I had all that trauma to that area. Not something that I really wanted to hear.
I knew that I was in for a long road to recovery after this, my first accident. I was a little bit bitter about everything, but not bad. Not at least until I heard about what was going on with the accident investigation.
While in the back of the ambulance after the accident, the Carter County Deputy poked his head in the door and asked for my insurance information and told the EMT to make sure that I had a blood test done at the hospital. I figured that it was probably standard procedure for each driver involved in a major accident to get drug tested at the hospital. I had no worries, since I knew mine would be clean, but I figured his wouldn't be.
Once I got out of the hospital, I called the insurance company of the guy who hit me. At least I was told it was his insurance agency. I was told by the agent that this guy didn't have insurance with them. I think I was finally upset about the accident. I was going to have a lot of medical bills and this guy didn't have any insurance.
It turns out that the guy that hit me was in serious condition and had to be flown out by helicopter. He had a lacerated spleen, punctured lung and 11 broken ribs. He was in pretty bad shape, but had no insurance and they didn't even have a blood test done to see if he had any drugs in his system.
It turns out that the county sheriff didn't even charge this man with anything. He was obviously under the influence at 10 in the morning and didn't have any insurance. How could they not charge him with anything. I guess that's why my uncle Carmel always told me that if I had an accident, that I needed to request the state police work the scene.
I decided to do my own research on the guy who hit me and found out that had a previous DUI and got a $150 fine for it. Wow, a speeding ticket is more than that. My mom suggested that I file my own charge of no insurance, which was what I did. Nothing came out of it though.
I was very lucky that I had really good work insurance and that I was able to get an uninsured motorist claim from my insurance company. It wasn't a lot of money, but I was able to get Cyndi a nice engagement ring and it helped pay for our wedding.
My plan was for this to be one blog about my healing, but I haven't even gotten to that part yet. You can expect a part 2 coming soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment