LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Student CAMP: Accident |
by Kristen Minor |
It started innocently enough. My best friend, my girlfriend, and I were going to drop off some movies that we had rented. (Gentle reader, this would be your cue to turn on some ominous music.)
Beach traffic attacked, and when the smoke cleared an SUV was sandwiched between my station wagon and a minivan. If there's any moment I'm going to have nightmares about, it's when I looked up and realized that there was no way that we could stop in time. There was a car and then there was the white of the airbag. I don't remember the actual impact and I don't remember pulling my car over to the side. There was smoke and a chemical smell all over the place and the horn wouldn't stop. The passenger doors wouldn't open, so the three of us had to get out on the driver side. I was basically in hysterics. Jennifer kept telling me to calm down, and she said I shouldn't look at my arms. They hurtI had had elbow surgery in June, and my chest and my stomach hurt. I'm short, and all of my injuries came from the airbag and the fact that I was so close to it. Jen also got hurt by the airbag on her sideshe had scrapes all over her legs and her glasses were broken. My friend Trav had a nasty burn from the seatbelt on his neck. Nobody in the other two cars was hurt except for a minor twisted ankle. Glass was all over the road and the front of my car looked like an accordion. The SUV that I hit was the least damagedits front and rear bumpers were bent in. As much as I would like to say that I struck a grand blow for environmentalism and mass consumerism by wounding a gas-guzzler, the Environmental Liberation Front would laugh at the damage done to that tank of a car. The minivan's trunk was caved in and the window was shattered completely. Presently an ambulance and firefighters arrived. They began to feel my spine and tell me that I could die from a ruptured spleen in three days if I did not go to the hospital and get examined, gosh darn it. I was not in a state to argue. With visions of my internal organs falling over and dying, I was fitted with a neck collar and summarily lowered onto a backboard. If anyone has had this particular experience, I am sure they will agree that no sensation matches that of several firefighters slowly making your stiffened and braced body become vertical. It's a trust fall from Hell that precludes approximately an hour of the scenic ceilings of Delmarva. My girlfriend was allowed to come with me. To be honest, I mumbled, "My friend...can my friend come with me? Please?" roughly 30 times, despite being told yes whenever I asked. Paramedics are patient people. The moment of establishing familial relationships did in fact come up. In the ER the nurse who was taking down my information was surprised that my girlfriend could answer every question that came up and inquired as to my relationship. She took, "She's my girlfriend" in stride and Jennifer was not only allowed to stay, but helped get me off of the backboard and gave me a radioactive milkshake so that I could have a CAT scan. And they say romance is dead. I had to have a CAT scan, X-rays, and other sorts of stuff to make sure that my spine wasn't hurt or if there was any internal bleeding. The answer was no on all accounts, for which I am eternally thankful. By the end of my three hours in the hospital we were starting to get a sense of humor about the whole thing. My favorite example is when Jen helped me get into a gown and the nurse said, "Are you sure you two are just friends? I'm kind of worried about you." My comment: "We're very close." And yes, I got to detail why there was no way I could be pregnant. The CAT scan guy stammered a bit when I came out to him. It was very cute, and I'm sure that the writers of bad melodrama, that I'm convinced look on me from the heavens, were taking notes for the next FOX miniseries. The three of us are all stiff and scraped. I'm going to be in long sleeves for a while and we're all moving very slowly. I had to clean out the car today. It was in a car graveyarda lot full of battered cars that could have easily served as a set for a bad horror movie. The interior of my beloved station wagon looked just fine, and it was quite frankly one of the creepiest experiences of my life to take out the accumulation of three years of driving knowing that I would never drive the car again. The deployed airbags were the worst thing to see. I don't actually remember hitting the airbag, but they were the only interior reminder that me and mine could have been pavement smears. I did not plan on experiencing emergency medicine so soon after writing about hospitals. Suffice it to say that my experience has left me with two bits of wisdomairbags and seatbelts are wonderful lifesavers, and one should always take the back roads to Rehoboth. Kristen Minor is a member of the class of 2004 at Dartmouth. She is currently looking for a nice used car and can be reached at Kristen@youth-guard.org. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 12, August 24, 2001. |