Some chilling details about my car accident I learned last week, if you're interested...
I got a call from the Police Department that is investigating the car accident for June. I spoke with the officer investigating, and he explained that the County is preparing to pursue criminal charges against the at-fault driver, and requested that I be prepared to testify, if the States Attorney wanted me to.
He offered to meet me, to look at the car, if I wanted to. It's totaled, so has been in the County lot with dozens of other wrecked, totaled cars.
I couldn't recognize my car, it's so badly damaged. The hood was crushed backward, exposing the engine.
He calmly, professionally, walked me through the mechanics of the accident.
A 20-something girl was driving north, late to work and speeding, in her boyfriend's Dad's jeep. She crossed the grassy medium, and hit a Ford Mustang head-on, spinning her jeep around horizontally in an oval and then it hit me. I was behind the Mustang. The jeep was traveling north backwards, bumper first, went it hit my car.
The officer paused and said that my car's computer recorded some of the details, included that I was braking at the time of the strike. He also praised Honda for protecting me, that the kind of accident I experienced is not something car-makers can test. He said out loud that he couldn't believe I survived the Jeep strike.
The Jeep, going backwards, climbed the bumper of my car and went backwards through the windshield. I basically was hit, in the face/skull, by the back bumper of the Jeep as it came through the windshield. The strike knocked me out, broke both cheekbones, injured my neck, fractured my skull. The Jeep then spun off of the hood, and the hit/spin sent my car into the woods on the side of the road.
I knew I had hit my head in the accident, but didn't know until this meeting that the other CAR hit my head. The Jeep driver had a hurt wrist, was released in a couple of days. The Mustang driver broke his ankle, was out of the hospital in a day.
When I was admitted to Baltimore Shock/Trauma, I was in a coma. The graded my condition as a "3" on the 15-point scale. My wife and parents were told, warned, that when I died, since I marked myself as an organ donor on my driver's license, that the hospital would harvest my organs for donations. Nearly every staffer was teary when they told me they were so happy I survived, came back from the edge.
I found out that I had tiny pieces of windshield glass embedded in my arms and scalp. The nursing staff taught my wife how to remove them, gave her alcohol and swabs to clean the wounds. By the time I woke up a month later, they had all healed, so I never knew about them until my wife told me the story. It's a miracle I survived the crash. It's a miracle I woke up from the coma. It's a miracle I learned to talk and walk again. I don't know why this happened, but I know that it's a miracle I made it through.
Next week, I meet again with my neurologist to determine if, then when, I can return to work. Once that decision is made, we *might* get a offer from the at-fault driver's insurance. That should (I hope!) clear the lingering balances I still owe $ on, the co-pay portions of the quarter-million dollar hospital and therapy bills. If my daughter Suzu hadn't set up the donation line, we'd be so hurting right now. Another reason I feel grateful.
So now, I consider the life I have, and feel great gratitude that I made it. Great concern for people I know that are weathering their own trials. I feel great regret for all the times I ever over-reacted, over-grumped, this leads me to great determination to be a nicer human being from now on. Less of a grouch.
Please, everyone, be safe. Drive safe. Be nice. Make the world better.
