OK, if you’re reading this, you probably already know, but I was in the hospital! I could probably write several blogs with very different feelings to them: the sentimental, thank God I’m alive blog, the funny, everyone at the hospital is so invasive blog, the I can’t believe healthcare is so expensive blog, but instead I’m just going to shove it all into one. And try for the invasive one the most because I’ll get to say vagina a whole lot in that one.
Friday I was headed to Pataskala from Columbus to meet Minigan, a good writer, better friend and the best at being extremely hyperactive, to have a writing meeting. We hadn’t met in weeks, and were supposed to the Monday before, but The Boyfriend got really sick and I had to take care of him instead. So, if you think about it, this whole thing is totally their fault.
Anyway, I was on 71 and had already passed an accident, but once I got to 70 (a major highway just after rush hour) I felt free and clear. To not be an asshole, I switched over to the left, “fast” lane so that the people coming on from and getting off on the really closely spaced onramps would have the least amount of people driving in front of them. I am too nice for my own good. Then the cars in front of me, way in front of me, put on their brake lights. So I tapped mine too. Then I realized they were still stopping. Like, a lot. And hard. So I had to match it. It looked like I was going to ram the car in front of me, but that didn’t happen.
Instead, my car with its week-old, new brake job (oh yeah, I just put over $500 into my car, mainly for brakes so this exact thing wouldn’t happen), pulled to the left and spun me sideways. I remember actually thinking, “Oh, this is bad,” as it happened. That, I think, is one of the weirdest things. How, you know something bad is happening, at least in my experience, and you know you have little to no control, but instead of freaking out, you are completely calm and just take it. Because that’s what I did. I was just sitting there, seeing the road before me disappear and be replaced with the meridian, and thinking, “Oh, dear, this is a bit of a pickle.” I hoped that I would end up driving off into the meridian and stop in the grass. That didn’t happen.
Instead, whoever was behind me slammed into the driver’s side door. That was a shitty turn of events.
I had barely been going 60 and had been stopping, so I was going slower. Now, I admit, my car was old and little and poopy, but it didn’t hit the car in front of it. So what the fuck was the guy behind me doing that made him hit me? Texting, I bet.
There was a split second, though, when I spun around and was still moving forward on the highway, but very slowly. I would have come to a stop. It would have been okay. But in that nugget of a moment that I was still in mid-turn I caught a glimpse of the driver’s side mirror and what was behind me. Then, sideways, I happened to see basically a grate and some headlights pretty much next to me. And in that second I knew it was going to hit me. And again, totally calm, I just thought, “Darn.” Why doesn’t my mind swear and go crazy when actual horrific shit is about to happen?
So then it hit me. Literally. I was conscious through this whole thing, but this was the split second that it got fuzzy. I couldn’t accept what was going on, and I just had to go, get out of the car. I’ve had a lot of nightmares about car accidents, so I thought maybe I was in one of those. Maybe this wasn’t happening and I’d just wake up next to The Boyfriend in a cold sweat and everything would be fine.
After I fumbled with the seatbelt and whimpered because I couldn’t see (I’d find out later that my glasses came flying off and ended up in the middle of the highway which, by the way, I HAVE ON RIGHT NOW! That’s pretty cool, ya gotta admit) I went to open the already open (because it was crushed) door and step out. My brain, always cool and collected, said, “Okay, so that just happened. Now, you’ve seen a lot of crime dramas—you know what happens next. This is when the car explodes, so you need to get away from it.” So I tried. I took a step out to go. But how the hell was I supposed to know my legs didn’t work?
I ended up on the ground, wedged in the crook of the door, facing the back of the car. Without the open door, I would have been flat on the ground. Then there was this woman. Actually, no I think she was like an angel. Really. Because she was the first person there and she kept calling me “sweetie” and she was so nice and every time I think about her I cry. I told her we had to move because cars were going to come and hit us. She told me the cars all stopped. She got me a blanket. She held my hand.
And that’s when I knew I was going to die.
Never in my life have I thought I was going to die. I consider it my intense egotism, but I just don’t think God will let me die this young and with so much left to do. I don’t do crazy things because I have that nonsense knowledge, but it’s really just never seemed that realistic to me. I know people die and that someday I will, but not me NOW. Except then, on the pavement, with strangers around me and my car in a mass of metal, I knew I was going to die. There was no other option. Not because it even hurt, I just thought, “This is it.”
Then a random man who happened to be an EMT came and assessed me. He got my info, he made me feel a little safer. On the other hand, though, about three other people, old white men btw, were walking around, shaking their heads, going “Oh my God, I can’t believe this” and freaking me right the fuck out. They asked me if I could move. No, 60 year old man, I cannot, and please don’t try to move me because you’ll probably kill me. DON’T YOU WATCH TV? DON’T MOVE THE VICITM!
But that woman was there and talking to me and that was okay.
Then the actual paramedics came. And guess what. No one got my name right. Ever. Not once. It is a good damn thing I was conscious and could repeat “ASH-LEEEEEEEY!” to them over and over when they kept questioning, “Melanie? Veronica? Pete?”
They took off the blanket the nice woman gave me, they took off my coat. They took off my sweater. They made me lay flat and my hip was so mad that I am pretty sure I swore because my actual voice is nowhere near as calm as my inner voice. I started shaking so badly from the cold and pain I thought I was going to snap everything I owned and passed out. I repeated “Ashley” a couple more times in case they forgot again and hypothermia had taken me.
I had on a neck brace, I was on a backboard, and they were getting ready to put me in the ambulance. This is the part where I thought, “Maybe I’m not going to die” and then the other rational part of me kicked in and my brain exploded into, “God, no DON’T PUT ME IN THE FUCKING AMBULANCE!!! IT’S TOO FUCKING EXPENSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!! Can’t that nice lady drive me? Or how bout I take myself? Seriously, guys, I don’t have $1,000 for a cab ride!” Then, on top of that, they decided to take me to Grant which was a billion miles further away than Licking Memorial, so then I was like “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” because they charge you mileage in those things.
And then my mind calmed down and the guy in the back of the ambulance with me was like, “What was your name again? Angie?”
Close enough.
P.S. Oxygen is effing terrible. Breathing on my own is something I prefer much more.
Coming up next: Part II: Trauma!
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