Waking from a car accident

I woke up one morning and realized that things were a bit different today. First of all, I was sitting up, which felt a bit weird since I couldn't remember sleeping in my chair last night. I looked forward and saw the dashboard of my pickup truck instead of my bedroom. A few blinks and continuous double-checks told me that this was real, no matter how confusing it was

Things still weren't right, though.

First of all, my dash board was too close to me and it was screwed up. I never saw it crinkled on the side before. I kept blinking my eyes and just staring around. I was so confused...

The front window was busted and I was sort of stuck in my current position, not able to adjust or move my lower body. I never sit this close to the steering wheel, usually having plenty of room to move and adjust

Then I saw a guy climbing into my truck through the passenger's side! I wanted to yell at him or swing around to defend myself with my feet, but neither of these were possible... strange. Then a guy came at me from the left side. He opened the door and reached in toward me. Again I couldn't do a thing except stare at him and wonder what the hell was happening

These guys shouldn't be here in my truck, especially while I'm driving driving to work. That's right, I was heading to work down a back road which I take every day. I drive alone and never have passengers, so this is really strange.

I was no longer moving. Things were a mess around me. The cab looked as though it had been tossed around, and there was stuff everywhere. Wait a minute! I looked around again and saw more damage. The airbag was against my chest and I was actually pushed into the steering wheel. My body felt funny all over. I tried to take a deep breath, but I couldn't. Suddenly I started feeling very different inside.

The state that came across me as I realized what happened is something that I could never explain to another person, these words as close as I can get and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

That truck was my favorite vehicle, even more so than the '66 Galaxy 500 I got back in high school, and I drove it off the lot brand new. I absolutely loved that truck. After I bought it, I used to spend quite a lot of time in front of my apartment, smoking cigarettes and feeling like a kid with a new toy. My brand new Ford truck. For weeks I would just stare at it, so thrilled that it was mine...

I remembered those times when I closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them again, this would turn out to have been a dream. But when I looked, the window was still broken, the dashboard had a terrible kink in it, and my heart dropped further with every beat. If I had stopped for coffee, maybe this wouldn't have happened. I always stop. How come I didn't stop? Why is everything busted? How am I going to fix this? What's wrong with my chest? My breathing got hard and a mild panic began. The word 'no' kept echoing around in my mind, getting louder and louder.

That's when I felt the most incredible pain of my entire life!

It seems as though I forgot about the guys coming at me while I tried to understand what was going on. One of them was trying to get my right leg out from underneath the dash and it felt as if he was cutting it off with a hacksaw. I yelled and screamed at him, probably calling him every nasty name I knew, stating the simple fact that my leg hurt when he moved it and that he should stop before I seriously hurt him in response!

That's when the other guy bent the left door forward beyond where it was meant to go. My screams toward him were probably a lot more kind, yet I could not believe that these two idiots were doing this. One was destroying my leg and the other my truck! I wanted to tell them to be more careful and that for God's sake, you're breaking things!

The one guy commented to the other that I was pretty well jammed in there and that they would have to remove me from the other side. He said that my leg was separated at the hip as well and to be careful. That incredible pain came back again when they finally removed me from the truck, except this time it hurt so much that I couldn't even talk. One of these guys pulled out a pair of scissors and began to destroy my favorite football shirt. I looked at him and just stared, even though I wanted to break his head (although I was ginning to forget what a head was). Things were getting very swishy and by the time he cut my pants off, I didn't really care any more. I didn't think there was a need for this, but screw it.

I barely remember being strapped into a gurney and brought to a helicopter across the street. Both my legs were taped together in a sitting position and everyone was told not to move them. A couple of times I saw the female EMT from the chopper bend over me. Probably to see if I could understand her and then to pump me full of more drugs. I remember realizing that I was in a helicopter, which I had wanted to ride my entire life, and tried to turn to look out the window. Unfortunately I was strapped in so tightly that I couldn't move in the slightest. Just great!

The next memory that I have is from a couple of days later in my hospital bed. My entire body hurt and I found that I had stitches all over the place. My right hip was shattered in the accident and still had to be repaired. My face was burned by the gas from the airbag and would require an extensive amount of work over time.

It turns out that I was extremely lucky to be alive. I had a seizure while driving and the best guess is that I was traveling at 60 MPH on that old twisting road when I struck a parked semi trailer on the side of the road. One witness said that my truck lifted off the ground like in the movies, and marks on the ground showed that the semi had moved forward a few inches from the impact.

I got a chance to see my truck before it went to the junkyard the following month and I understood why I was in so much pain. Everyone that looked at my truck couldn't believe the driver survived. When my wife first went to the place it was towed to, the guys working there were a bit nervous about talking with her. They thought her husband was killed and that she had come to get whatever she could from his ruined truck. My wife said their moods changed drastically when she told them I was in the hospital and would be ok.

I wonder what ok means.

When I saw my truck I was surprised that wasn't killed as well. And pissed off. And sad. I remember resting on my crutches, dropping my head and wanting to cry.

Here I was with a huge bandage over my face and trying to get around on crutches as best I could. I couldn't get to work any more at my consulting position which left me with no insurance and no income. I could see a gathering vision of the snowball effect that was on it's way, along with no drivers license for the foreseeable future and having a face that I still hate to look at.

At least I'm ok. Ok sucks.

Please wear your seatbelt. If I had been wearing mine I probably would have climbed out of the truck myself, instead of sliding under the dashboard and getting wedged in place. Laying unconscious with my face across the airbag caused damage to my eye and the skin to burn badly. Things could have been completely different if I was wearing my seatbelt. Things could have been completely different if I stopped for a cup of coffee.

Next month I'll begin looking for another truck after four years and you can be sure that it won't happen again.

By the way, don't bother calling for a Mulligan... or clicking your heels together. They don't work. I tried everything.