A week and a day ago, I finished my last commitment in my college city and had mostly finished packing for my trip home for winter break. I set an alarm for 9:30 am and went to bed.
The following day, I woke up still sleepy but got out of bed and started getting ready, determined to be on time for my friend's 3 pm graduation in my home city about three hours away. After three trips from my third floor apartment to my car parked at the curb downstairs, I had loaded a suitcase full of nice clothes with their hangers, a trunk full of workout and other casual clothes as well as socks and underwear, my school backpack with my computer, some books, and the usual water bottle, wallet, phone, and keys I keep in there, a bag of laundry, a few pairs of shoes, and a box of food that would expire before I returned in January. After a quick stop at a gas station, I was ready to get on the freeway.
With 3 1/2 years of college behind me, this was easily the fifteenth or maybe twentieth time I had made this same trip back home. To a tourist, it would be an interesting and scenic drive through the desert landscape, but to me, it had become pretty boring. There are two small towns between my college city and home and I often stop in both when driving alone to break up the monotony with a snack. I couldn't that day though because I had finally gotten on the freeway just after 11:00 am and my friend was picking me up at 2:15 from my parents' house to go to our friend's graduation. I had to keep moving.
There is a section of the drive from about forty-five minutes away from school until about an hour and a half from my parents' house where there are basically no radio stations, and as I entered that dreaded zone, I switched from radio to CD. For over a year, I hadn't bought any new music on iTunes because I had been using Spotify. However, my aunt had given me an iTunes gift card for Hanukkah, so before I headed back to school after Thanksgiving break two weeks prior, I had bought some new music and burned it onto a CD for my car. I don't know if my car CD player was having issues or the CD didn't burn correctly, but only the first few songs of that CD played cleanly in my car.
After passing the first small town and hearing the same few songs several times, I reached down where the passenger's feet would go to grab my CD case. Hurtling along on cruise control, I set the CD case on the passenger seat next to me and looked back and forth from the case to the road, flipping through until I found something that looked good. I switched the CD's and refocused on the road.
About the time I passed the first town without stopping, I started to get annoyed with having to stay in the car continuously for two hours until I reached the second town, where I planned to stop briefly for lunch. Thoughts of sitting for hours at my friend's graduation crossed my mind. Of course I wanted to be there for her but I had convinced myself that it would be extremely long. Additionally, I hadn't showered the night before and felt gross, knowing that because I left later than planned, I wouldn't have time to shower at my parents' house before getting picked up to go to the graduation. Grumpily, I tilted my seat back so far that I felt a little scared at my perceived diminished control of the car. I loosely held the wheel on the bottom, blatantly neglecting the "10 and 2" hand grip from driver's ed. I just wanted to get home.
I noticed the sign announcing that I was entering the county of which the second town is the county seat and noted that I was making progress. I was still listening to that second CD I had put in earlier in the drive. It was a mix that some of my teammates had made when I played water polo my senior year of high school. I am a fan of old photos and nostalgia-inducing music, so I had enjoyed having the N Sync CD from when I was a kid in my car. One of their songs came on the mix and I remembered that I had the N Sync CD in my car and hadn't played it in awhile.
I once again reached down to grab my CD case and repeated the same routine of glancing back and forth from the case to the road, looking for the N Sync CD. I got to the last page in the case and hadn't found it, so I figured it must be in my other CD case. It was a little further forward in the passenger feet area and I reached down but couldn't quite grab it. Still flying down the road on cruise control, I grabbed the first CD case and tried to use it to move the second case forward on the floor so I could grab it. I tried a second time and then looked up. I saw where I was, panicked, and turned the wheel hard the other way.
"Oh shit," I remember thinking, realizing that I, Sarah with the lifelong accident-free driving record, was about to be in a major car crash. I braced myself and suddenly felt like I was on an extremely violent roller coaster. For the brief moment I was fully alert, I remember looking at the steering wheel.
The next thing I knew, I was still sitting in my car with my seatbelt off. The car was making the obnoxious dinging noise that indicated the key was in the car and one of the doors was not closed. People were talking to me through what I eventually realized was my completely missing back left window.
'Should we call 911?' I remember thinking. 'It wasn't that bad. Maybe we shouldn't bother them.'
I hesitantly asked the people outside my window to call 911. I did not know how bad the accident had been and was afraid of sounding like an idiot by asking them to call 911 if it had been really minor. Understanding the severity in a way I couldn't at that moment, they did call 911. Everyone kept asking me if I was OK. "Yes," I told them again and again as I cradled my head in my hands. I heard someone speaking to the 911 operator. I looked down where I always kept my phone while driving but it wasn't there. I requested a phone from the people outside my window and was soon handed one.
I intended to call my dad, but in my state of panic and shock, I dialed my own phone number. I thought about it for a moment and then was able to dial my dad's number. "Hi Dad, don't freak out, I'm OK, but I was in a car accident," I told my dad. I remember what his voice sounded like as he responded but not exactly what he said. I asked if he wanted to talk to the lady standing by the car, and they spoke. The girl outside my window, who I later learned was the granddaughter of the woman talking to my dad, told me she had EMT training "in case you need CPR". I smiled at her joke, still holding my aching head.
The lady asked my dad for his name and then for my name. I don't remember what she thought he said but she said my name wrong the first time. He must have repeated it because she then said it correctly.
Another traveler came to the passenger door and tried to open it, but it was locked, as my doors always are when I'm driving. I unlocked the door with the button and he opened it up and peered in. He looked curiously as if he wasn't sure what he would find in there. Probably ten minutes passed in which I stayed in the driver's seat. Eventually I was encouraged to try to get out of the car, or maybe I had asked if I could. The driver side door was broken so I got up and crawled out the passenger side door.
Immediately I was shivering. It wasn't even all that cold. I ended up with a zip up hoodie and my heavy winter coat on over my t-shirt. Both were covered in debris, from dirt to toothpaste.
The initial shock began to subside and I was able to see the damage. The trunk was totally smashed in and my belongings were scattered all over the side of the road, starting at my car and going back probably fifty yards. I noticed a pair of my own underwear sprawled out on the ground. Normally I would have rushed to pick them up, but in the moment, that seemed entirely unimportant.
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| my pink toothbrush holder, laundry basket, a library book, and many other items displaced along the side of the freeway |
I sat on the back bumper of the ambulance as the EMT's took my blood pressure and measured my oxygen levels with the device they put on the index finger. I seemed just fine. They took a look at my head, especially where there was a cut. Because I had yet to see my own face and had only been told about the cut and felt the bump forming, I imagined a huge gash. My parents told me to go ahead and go to the hospital in the small town nearby. My mom told me to make sure I grabbed my backpack, which had basically everything of major value that was in the car, including my computer and wallet. I crawled into the ambulance, sat down on the bench, buckled myself in, and, on Friday, December 13, experienced my first ever ambulance ride in ambulance number 13.
The EMT got a brief health history and asked where I was hurting. Then I called my friend who was supposed to pick me up for the graduation and told her what had happened. I chatted with the EMT during the approximately 20-minute drive into town. I kept my eye on the stretcher in front of me, quite aware that I could have been lying in it in much worse shape than I was in.
My mom and brother met me at the hospital. I had bruises on my calf and on my hips and shoulder where the seatbelt was, some bumps and a small cut on my head, and a generally banged up body, but I had no broken bones, no internal injuries, and a clear head CT scan. Just a few hours after arriving at the hospital, I was discharged.
We went to the junkyard where my beloved 1999 Camry had been towed. I sat in my mom's car and cried as I looked at the shriveled mess that I had been driving just hours before. We removed everything I wanted to keep from the car, including all the luggage I was bringing home for break as well as miscellaneous items like my old high school parking passes. I took a lot of pictures. I wanted to remember that moment and that great car that been my primary mode of transportation for nearly six years and that had kept me alive in the accident. While I missed my friend's graduation, I was able to make it to her graduation party that evening.
That was one week ago. I spent today with my friend's first grade class, helping and observing. Last night I went to the gym. A few days before that I went for an hour walk. And a few days before that, I survived a potentially fatal rollover car crash. I made some stupid choices while driving that day, including reaching for the CD case while the car was still moving, and I know I am incredibly fortunate that the consequence for my major lapse in judgement was not my life.
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