a real-life adventure
Read Part V here.
Now available in ebook format!
I assumed that meant I had sustained the worst injuries. I was thankful the people in the other car were all right.
The ambulance was the winner. A uniformed paramedic stooped to take the place of the woman at my side. He lifted my left arm to take my pulse, and I cried out in pain. He hollered the vital statistics across to someone I couldn't see, and the people who had been securing my right side moved to make way for the backboard.
I shuddered in the memory of the last time I'd been taped to a backboard. Two years earlier, nearly to the day, I watched as firemen cut through my driver side door with "the jaws of life," just inches from my leg, to free me from my first dream car. The car I intended to keep for the rest of my life. The car I loved so much, I bought another one just like it after that first ordeal. And now identical twin Dream Car II was upside down in the I-25 median, yet another shattered reality.
I knew my neck wasn't broken the first time, too, but the driver who had run a stop sign and broadsided me knocked my car 40 feet through a fence and into the front yard of a home owned by a paramedic and nurse husband/wife team. I kind of wonder now how it always happens that someone with medical expertise is close at hand when I get knocked senseless. Is someone planning this out in advance?
The paramedic at my first big wreck was quick to respond ─ he beat the ambulance by a good two minutes, and his RN wife was close on his heels. The fire truck took longer, coming from across town. The whole time we waited, the paramedic held my head against my headrest as the nurse tried to comfort me, even though I kept assuring them my neck was fine.
The crew freed me from my mangled vehicle by sliding me onto a backboard. What a tricky maneuver! They taped me down to keep me from moving during the 45-second ride to the hospital a couple of blocks away.
The thing I remember best about my first brush with an airbag is the shot the doctor gave me to "relax" my muscles. They don't tell you as that needle's sinking in what kind of bruise you're going to have the next day.
The thing I remember second best is the nurses peeling the tape from my hair. Or should I say, peeling my hair from my head?
And I thought airbags hurt!
I wondered what memories from this new deadly airbag encounter would haunt me most...
Read Part VII here.
Table of Contents
Copyright 2012 by Deborah and Brett Atkinson
I certainly can see how it took some time to recover from your injuries, but just having read these few parts and the images in my own mind, of all your detailed moments, like the tape peeling back at the end here, I can see how it took you time to heal on the inside before you could really bring yourself for this aspect of your healing. Being able to put it all in words and still stand tall. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Karen. Healing emotionally took a lot longer than healing physically. But I am whom I am now because of journey. Thanks to the journey...
DeleteAnd now another accident even farther back. Ouch. I'm so glad you're still alive and able to do all that you do!
ReplyDeleteP.S. I sure hope you didn't buy a third Dream Car. (Call it superstition.)
Thanks for the giggle, Sue! Yes, many of my closest friends absolutely forbid me from getting yet another white Toy Corolla. Of course, you know I did wind up with a white Toy 4Runner several years later, right??? But it wasn't a twin!!!
DeleteI'm glad that you have recovered so well! And as Mrs M above is saying, hopefully there is no dream car nr 3.
ReplyDeleteI deliberately put pink hues i my photo :)
Thanks, Cat. (And your photo is beautiful!) I did not invest in a triplet. Two was quite enough! (But I still think that's a very cool looking car up there at the top of the post. Yes, that was my real car in real life, just days after I got it!)
DeleteOH! I didn't realize till now that this was the second of two terrible accidents!
ReplyDeleteYep, second of two, and hopefully last. !!! I don't need any more to learn the lesson!!! :)
DeleteHi, I too was in a bad car accident 1 mile from my house. I wound up on my side with my arm pinned between the ground and imbedded in my car door. After 6 hours of surgery they platted and screwed my 3 bones back in place and put my elbow back to where it belonged. When I went back to the surgeon to have my stitches removed I told them I would be knitting in a month. I took size 12 needles and knitted 2 stitches by the end of one month. It is 9 months to the day sense my accident. I have only finished one hat but what a great feeling it was! I made a few snowflakes last night. I found your website this morning looking for more snowflake ideas. Thank you so much for sharing your story and your fantastic patterns. I can't wait to see how yours end. I am so thankful that your daughters were all right. Cathy
ReplyDeleteCathy, oh my gosh!!! I'm so glad you're doing better now, and that was incredible, setting a goal of when you would start knitting again. In retrospect, I wish I had done something like that because I seriously had trouble getting back in the car. If I had set a goal as you did, maybe I would have stubbornly pressed forward...
DeleteBut then, naaaa, I wouldn't have come up with this book... :)
This is an incredible series. You write so well. But it hurts me to think that you actually went through this ordeal.
ReplyDelete