The Accident

“Ready to head out?” My mom says to me as we finish gathering our things to leave the gym.

I nod and hold out my hand for her car keys. I was sixteen at the time, but I was still driving with my learner’s permit. I had reached the 50 hours of practice driving that my mom wanted me to get before I got my license. I was really excited to take my driver’s test the following weekend. My mom’s car was a sleek white 2016 Dodge Charger and I always felt so cool when she let me drive it. The gym that we went to was about 6 minutes away from our home. I pull out of the parking lot and start making my way onto the main road. We are sitting at a stop light when suddenly we were moving forward. All I can remember is me screaming and knowing that we just got hit. I specifically remember the feeling of my seat belt holding me in my seat. After what felt like ages, we stopped… in the middle of the intersection. My mom was trying to stay calm and find her phone. She figured a bystander would end up calling 9-1-1 so she tried to call my dad. He did not answer. Then she tried to call my older brother. He also did not answer. Finally, she called one of our family friends, whose daughter I had plans with after I was supposed to get home. She answered and they came to the scene of the car accident.

Everything other than that is spotty. I remember a lady coming up to my side of the car and saying that she was a doctor. She asked me if anything hurt, and I said my back and my one leg. I was very tense and did not want to move. I was scared that If I moved, something bad would happen and I would internally hurt myself even more. Next thing I know, paramedics were coming by to get me out of the car. I recall how cool the air was outside. It was only around 8 pm on an early August evening and the sun had not set yet. A neck brace clasped around my neck and then I was helped onto a gurney and wheeled to the ambulance. I could hear my mom telling them that she wanted to be taken to the same hospital as me. I could see my childhood best friend and her mom standing out by the side of the road. I cried when her mom said, “Brooke we’re here!” I lifted my hand to wave, so they knew I heard.

The ambulance ride felt like it lasted hours. I distracted myself by talking to the paramedics. I told them that I really admire what they do and then I said that if I stopped talking I will start sobbing. So, I tried to talk to them all the way to the hospital. In the moments of silence, I cried. I still did not really know what happened. I never got a look at the scene or the damage on the car or who hit us. I just knew that I had been in a car accident.

By the time we got to the hospital, we had to wait for rooms to open for me and my mom. We both waited there on the gurney with our respective paramedics. I had my phone at that point somehow because I took pictures of us. I was slap happy to say the least. I could not believe what had just happened and my emotions were all over the place. It was all so sudden and even though I had seen or read about car accidents in the past, I never thought on some random Thursday, I would get into one that was not even my fault.

That night, I got many x-rays done and later I got an MRI scan of my neck. The doctors were worried about a ligament being out of place. I remember sitting downstairs on the recliner at night trying to fall asleep and crying about how scary the thought of neck surgery would be. I had to be in a neck brace 24/7, except when I shower, for about 3 weeks. It took a few days until I could walk around without feeling the most soreness that I have ever felt in my life. Luckily, the MRI scan showed that I did not need to get surgery. I did, however, go through physical therapy for about a month because the muscles in my back and neck were just so weak. Eventually, after I stopped wearing the neck brace, I got my license. The place that I went to for physical therapy happen to be adjacent to the road that I got into the accident on, which I had to drive on every time I had to go to said therapy. My mom came out of the accident unscathed, by the way.

I will not get into the legal side of the whole thing because that was a lot. What I can say is that the person who hit us was in town from out of the country for work and driving a rental car. He was also drunk at 8pm on a Thursday night. It baffled me how careless it was for a grown man to let that happen. This man was high up in the business he worked for as well. Not only did he total the rental car, but my mom’s car was totaled as well. I got to see pictures of both cars when they were taken to some scrap yard. The entire back end of the Charger was pushed in on itself and the rear windshield was shattered. It was a good thing that none was sitting in the back seat. That is expected when you are sitting in a stationary car and get rear ended by someone going forty mph.

This life changing experience changed me as driver. I never let my friends sit in my car without having their seatbelt on. I notice that a lot of people my age will not put their seat belt on if they are sitting in the back seat. They say they do not need it and that they trust my driving. It is not me that they need to worry about, it is the guy that decided to have one too many beers at the restaurant, or the teenager that is trying to switch to a different music playlist on their phone that my friends should be thinking about. All I can think of in those moments is that if there was someone in the back seat of the car that I was in when I got into my accident… who knows what injuries they would have had or if they would even live. I do not shy away from telling them that too because it is important for them to know that there are people on the road that do not care about you and will do what they want even if it is dangerous driving.

Unless you go through it yourself, you may not know the certain precautions that you need to take when driving. Proper education on different situations and how to react in those situations is something that should be necessary to have. There are so many car accidents and fatalities that come out of them that can be avoided. More advocation on dangers of distracted driving and it is not a bad idea to have a certain age limit where you have to retake your drivers test. I do not think there is any shame in refreshing your mind on the rules of the road in order to make your journey, as well as every driver around you, as safe as possible. There are problems that can be fixed with proper education and reform when it comes to driving in order to lessen the occurrence of fatal car accidents.