A friend of mine has been reading my blog, and raised the point that although I have made mention of the accident, I have never really explained what the accident was. I decided to write about the accident now.
In 1984 I was a stupid teenager. Trying to break free of a very sheltered life, I started going to parties shortly after I left highschool and started tech. In my mind, I was superwoman and now I had my freedom I was going to grab it with both hands, because there were no consequences for a teenager.
One night, I found out that this is not correct.
It was a Saturday night, I was out of tech for semester break, and had been invited to a party. As any teen who has been invited out, I jumped at the chance and went along. Many friends were there, as well as one very cute guy I had never met before. He and I started talking and as we got drunker, things progressed to the point where things could have gone a lot further.
Having lived a sheltered life, I just let things progress, but a friend of mine who was also there, decided that things had gone quite far enough, and took me for a walk along the beach to clear my head. During the walk, he gave me a lecture on hooking up with people that I didn’t even know and all the parental advise that a fellow teenager can give. But I listened and decided that I should actually go home.
It just so happened that neither of us had transport, so the guy who I had ‘hooked’ up with, in his inebriated state, gave us both a ride back to my place. Unfortunately we didn’t make it there.
About half way between the party and my home there is an intersection. For people who knew it as it was, it was ok. There was no signage informing people that they were approaching a compulsory stop, and only one white line across the road suggested there ‘might’ be a connecting road there. There also were no street lights on either road so visibility was rather bad. The driver did not know the street, or the area.
*From a police investigation the following events took place. I can not recall myself what happened for the next part, which is why I say what was told to me by police*
The driver of our car ran the stop, and was side swiped by another car which was travelling at high speed in a 50kmh commercial area. The driver of our car had been drinking and was not over the limit, but because of his occupation, blame was automatically placed on the driver of our car. More on that later.
The impact was so great that the car I was in was pushed sideways for 50+ meters and came to rest 3 meters past the pedestrian crossing which was further down the road. Both cars were written off.
Although the impact was directly on the drivers side, both people on that side of the car (the driver, and my friend who was sitting in the back seat) walked away from the car with only minor bruising. I was thankful of this.
*back to where I can remember*
After the car stopped moving, I remember getting out and walking around. Apart from a bit of a headache, I felt fine. Some good semaritan advised me to sit down because I was bleeding. At the mention of blood I felt quite dizzy and nauceaus, so thought I should sit before I fell. Then I looked down.
My leg had been cut open. All I could see was bone, sinew, and blood from about half way down my thigh, to three quarters below my knee. I started hyperventilating, and actually I think I did pass out at that point. The sight was a little too much to take in.
The ambulance arrived and I was harnessed into a stretcher so I couldn’t move. I told them I was fine, because I had been walking around straight after the accident, but they didn’t believe me.
At the hospital I remember telling them to hurry up, because I had to be home, or my adoptive mother would be very very upset with me for being out so late. They asked me her name, but I couldn’t remember it. All I could remember was my sister, so I gave her name.
Next thing I remember is that there are people walking into the room I was in making their assessments, and organising x-rays, operating theatres, and other tests. I was not longer restrained so I tried to get up and walk around. I found that I could no longer feel anything below my waist. I decided to stay still and hopefully that would pass.
The next thing that happened is my sister came into the room, and with her came other people that I did not recognize. The people were members of my family, including my adoptive mother. People I ’should’ have known, but didn’t. My sister and I were never very close, but my adoptive parents and my adoptive brother and I were always close. I still do not know why I remembered her and not them. But that is how it was.
To that day I can not recall ever seeing my mother cry. Even when my father died, she stayed strong and the only reason I know she did cry was because I would sometimes hear her at night. But never did she show tears of pain in our presence. When she walked in, and this image will haunt me the rest of my life, there were tears streaming down her face. I would have felt bad at the time if I had of remembered who she was then, but as my memory came back over the coming months, I remembered her and I have never been able to forgive myself for putting her through the pain I put her through that day.
Finally, after hours of tests and procedures, I was taken into surgery. The results were a little worse than I had initially thought. I had a broken L2, a displaced L3, and splintered L4. I had lost my original kneecap somewhere during the crash, which I still have never found. My nose and jaw had been broken on impact, and my nose also had been severed through in two places. I had suffered whiplash, and other minor cuts and abrasions.
It took me two years to be able to walk again without help from a walking stick or crutches. One year of that was spent in traction with metal things sticking into me and out of me in, what seemed like, every direction. I was told by the doctors that the damage to my spine was so intense that I would never walk again. As soon as they found there was no ‘real’ damage to the spinal cord, I forced myself out of that bed and that chair and decided I would never be in a wheelchair any longer than I ‘had’ to be.
By 1985 I was walking again with assistance of crutches. And I had a slight setback when I fell pregnant with my first son, and ended up back in the chair for a while. But I am up on my feet again, and I have no intentions of ever letting that happen to me again. (going back into a wheelchair that is)
The charges that were laid against the driver of our car was driving while under the influence of alcohol, failing to stop at a stop sign causing a vehicular collision and life threatening injuries. The charges against the other driver? None.
The driver of our car proved he was under the legal limit with the amount of alcohol he had consumed. His lawyer had photographic evidence of the road conditions, and the environment he was in that night. He also supplied measurements of distances travelled and calculations of the speeds both cars would have had to been travelling to end up where they did.
I testified on behalf of the driver, and told the court what I could remember. During the testimony I also said the guy was doing me a favour, that I had only met him that night, and that he did not intentionally mean to land me in hospital. Also, after the accident, this person who I didn’t even know spent almost every waking moment at my bedside while I got better. He supported me through every single pain staking recovery process. And up until that night, he had been a complete stranger, but became one of my closest friends and confidantes.
The courts decided that the accident was all his fault, even though we were hit by a drunk driver (who even admitted in court that he was over the limit), and he was ordered to pay for the damage of both cars which amounted to around $12k as well as court costs.
My friend that was in the accident as well?
He visited me once while I was in the hospital to tell me that he had a 2 cm rip in his jeans and had lost an ear ring. He also thought it would be fair if I paid for the damage to his clothing and have the ear ring replaced. Not once did he ask me how I was doing during the visit. I have not seen my friend since that day, as I asked him, not so nicely, to look at me, assess his damages against mine, and then get the hell out of my life and never come back.
For years afterward, I blamed him for the accident. If it were not for him being my conscience that night, maybe things would have been different. Since I have grown up a little, I realise that this is how it was, and if things were different, the outcome could have been a lot worse. I was just lucky.
Funnily enough, I never ever thought the accident was that bad until the other day when I was discussing it with a friend. Twenty plus years later, it finally hit me, the accident was actually quite bad. All these years I just saw it as being what it was .. a case of wrong place, wrong time, and I healed. Now? I not only know how lucky I was, but also how bad it really was as well. Not for me, but for my family and friends. And for this I apologise to you all for putting you through that.
