I was on my way to work that morning and as I was going through an intersection a car in the left turn lane turned right in front of me and I full on nailed it. I had a green light so I think I had less than a couple seconds to hit my brakes and went head on into the side of her car and then bounced off and went into another car that was sitting at the red to go across the intersection. So I had the fun off two impacts.
When I hit the first car, the impact shoved the engine back into my car and so both of my knees went into the dash. That was probably the worst part, they hit the dash so hard that I couldn't feel them at first. I remember sitting in my car trying to stop hurting enough to move and all I could do was force myself to take shallow breaths. Scary.
One of the people driving behind me was an off duty EMT and he was the first one to come up to me after the accident and poked me hard in the middle of my chest telling me not to fall asleep because I was still stunned from the impact and wasn't moving. He happened to poke me right where my seat belt had come across my chest and boy did that wake me up. I sat up in my seat so quick that if I hadn't already hurt my neck I probably would have then. He had me sit back and take my seat belt off and asked me some questions about where I was hurting, if I could move my legs and get out of the car. I finally got some feeling back in my legs but by that point they were hurting so bad all I could do was wiggle them a bit. He reached around behind my neck to press on my spine and tell him if that hurt, it didn't. It was the muscles on the right side and my shoulder that hurt. The next day all I could figure was when I knew I was going to collide with the first car, I turned my face away and tensed up my shoulder and then when we hit I jarred them pretty good.
After he checked to make sure I didn't have any spine injuries he asked me if I knew my name, how old I was, standard questions because I had quite a bump on my head. I hadn't even realized there was anything wrong with my head by that point because I was still foggy, and when I reached up to lightly touch it I felt like I had a softball sticking out of the right side of my forehead. When I put my hand back down is when I noticed my left hand had been hurt pretty bad, it was bleeding quite a bit and I could only move my pinky and thumb.
At that point I was aware enough to do an injury count, I moved my right arm and that hurt my shoulder, my hand was hurting, I had some burns on my arm from the air bag, a few cuts from glass. I was shaking and my chest was really sore from the seat belt but nothing too serious, mostly though my knees were my focus, every thing else paled in comparison because they hurt the worst. All of this, from the time of impact to me finally regrouping enough to take in my aches and pains and surroundings was only a minute or so.
Strangely enough, my first reaction after I was able to think some what clearly was "I need to call work and tell them I can't make it in." When my uncle found out I called my work before the ambulance even arrived he commented that I better use that for incentive for a raise. I laughed.
After I got off the phone with my work I was still a bit disoriented and instead of calling my grandmother like I should have, I called my mom who lives in Florida. All I can remember thinking at that point was I need to talk to mom. I have no doubt that it was a comfort thing because my mom and I are super close and once she got on the phone and I told her what happened I broke down crying. I was hurting, disoriented, I didn't know if anyone else had been hurt, I was pretty sure my car was toast, and all I wanted was to talk to my mom so she could make it all okay.
Once I was showing I was fully aware of everything a lady who was on the phone with 911 handed me her cell. The dispatcher asked me some questions about my injuries and asked if I needed an ambulance and I said yes. After I handed the lady her phone back my mom was still on my cell and was also on her boyfriend's phone calling my uncle and my grandmother to see who could get to me first.
At this point things start to get a bit blurry, I can't remember if the ambulance or police arrived first, but I do remember an EMT coming over and checking my injuries and seeing how serious everything was. She checked my neck again because I had said the right side hurts and they made me put on a neck brace, which quite frankly was more irritating that my neck pain. What sticks out in my mind the most though is when she reached down to check my right knee and she pressed on it and I nearly broke down crying again because it hurt so bad I just blurted out "please stop touching me". So she had me move my legs again and try sliding them out of the car, which with some effort I could do, it just hurt like hell but by that point I knew nothing was broken so I managed to suck it up and do as she asked. The EMT walked away and a police officer came over and started asking me some questions about what happened, what direction was I driving in, how fast was I going, did I have a green light, was I wearing my seat belt, things like that.
I asked the police officer if the other two drivers were okay and he said there didn't seem to be anything too serious, we were all banged up and hurting but everyone would be okay. That was a sigh of relief.
After every one else had been packed up into an ambulance and taken away I was next and the EMT's had me see if I could get out of the car on my own. My left leg wasn't nearly as bad as my right so I was able to stand up and support my weight on that one but every time I tried to put weight on my right leg it kept trying to give out on me. So the EMT's supported me while I hobbled onto the gurney and they had me lay down. Once they got me into the back of the ambulance they took a better look at my knees and I couldn't help but laugh when the lady goes, "We're going to cut your pants off and don't freak out, they're already ripped and ruined anyway." She must have a lot of people complain about having their clothes cut off.
While I was laying there and they were asking me some more questions I saw the side door open out of the corner of my eye and I heard my uncle telling me he was here and that he was going to follow me to the hospital. He reached in and patted my shoulder and like a total girl I started to cry again because it was a relief to know he was there.
When the EMT's were done going over all of my injuries the lady hopped out and we headed for the hospital.
My uncle managed to get a picture of my car after I was on my way to the hospital.
If you click on it, the picture should expand.
