The Accident

I decided to write this post because people keep asking me about how I am doing and how the incident I am about to describe happened. I’m surprised I am able to still write on, let alone power up this computer. Shoutouts to Toshiba and the way my dad packed our luggage in the trunk. As I digress, my family (my father, younger brother, younger sister, and I) were on our way back from L.A. to Dallas. While I was driving I saw my exit and continued onto the long street that leads us into our sub-city within Dallas. The street consists of four lanes; two lanes each for incoming and outgoing traffic, separated by a grassy island. My father was in the passenger seat, my brother was behind my father in the back seat, and my sister was in the back seat behind me. I was in the left lane, while the car to the right of me was trying to switch lanes; forward or behind me is completely unknown because the driver’s driving patterned seemed really undecided. But I do know that I was fully alert because I remember listening to Rebecca Ferguson hearing ♫Hear my prayer now, Just say the word and I could be there now, Oh I say my prayer now, Just give me time and I will be there now, Oh you’re too good to lose, You’re too good to lose♫.  I saw the driver coming towards me from the right side so my instinct was to move over so I wouldn’t get hit because my father and brother were on the right side. When I moved over to the left I hit the curb. Usually if I hit a curb I’m able to come off the curb without a problem. This time was different. After hitting the curb I heard a loud noise that sounded worse that just hitting the curb, maybe it could have just been my imagination. But as I was trying to come off the curb, the car started swerving from left to right continuously. I tried to stabilize the car by moving the steering wheel. My dad then said, “Slow down, slow down.” So I took my foot completely off the gas. After what felt like 5 seconds of trying to handle the steering wheel, I knew that I had no control so I took my hands off of the wheel. I just remembered hearing people say that when the steering wheel is moving on its on, you moving it even move will just cause more trouble. After taking my hand off the steering wheel, it allowed the car to pick which direction it wanted to go…it chose to go to the right. To the right of us was a slight grassy decline of a hill, or one might call it a ditch, and beyond the ditch was a fence and behind the fence were trees. I’m guessing that the cars behind us saw us swerving and stayed back, and the cars in front of us sped up because as we headed to the ditch, I saw no other cars. I saw the green ditch coming so I remember saying, “It’s coming.” I’m guessing the car made a slight hop onto the ditch from the street, which caused us to roll. I felt the roll coming so I grabbed the steering wheel, pulled my body away from the steering wheel, and hunched down…the way I do when I’m on a twisty rollercoaster. After the first roll I felt air, stating the side windows had been broke. After the second roll I saw the airbag pop out and I said, “Oh shit!” after remembering about an accident my best friend had told me about the day before, including a whole family died because they rolled off the overpass. After the third roll I felt at peace. My life didn’t flash before my eyes but I remember saying in my head that if this was it…I was at peace within and I felt I have lived an complete life for my age. After the fourth roll (we landed straight up), I remember hearing a loud continuously noise which led me to believe the car was about to explode (later finding out that it was just the windshield wipers being out of whack) and moaning that was ringing in my left ear a couple of feet from the car. As I tried to open the door twice I yelled, “I hear moaning!” I realized the door was not going to open to I jumped out the window landing on my hands, pushing myself up with my feet, landing on several pieces of glass. I ran to a body that I saw just lying in the grass, which was my younger sister, Cayla, because she had flew out of the car.  I saw what looked like rashes on her face, and blood running down her shirt, nose and legs. I said, “Can you breathe, can you breathe?!” Her breaths were weak. I saw my dad come behind me. My brother said my dad and I were having dialogue but I can’t remember any of it, I just remember yelling, “Call 911! Somebody call 911! Where’s a phone? Call 911!” My brother reached for his phone in his pocket but then realized his battery had popped out during the rolls. My dad ran to the car and grabbed his cell from the glass covered floor on the passenger side. I was calm; not trembling until I called 911 because it took five rings before they answered the phone. I felt it took so long to the point where I remember looking at the phone to see if I dialed the right number. The lady asked us where we were and telling me to calm down because I was yelling. I was only yelling to see if Cayla was still breathing because I saw my dad breakdown into tears while holding her telling her that he was here, and I was yelling at Chris trying to get him to open up a suitcase from the trunk to get a towel to apply her leg. I saw the police coming so I began waving them down because they passed us. I then began running toward the street remember seeing two lights on the grassy ground, which turned out to be the backlights of Cayla and I phones. But for some reason I just felt that as police they could just hop the curb but instead they made a “proper u-turn”. When the police arrived I just remember saying, “She’s right there, she’s hurt.” The police then separated my brother and me in order to get our side of the story. And one officer went to talk to a witness that had stopped on the side of the road because they saw us flipping. They wouldn’t allow us to touch anything until they had pictures and I was sitting there like, “What the hell? This isn’t a crime scene, an accident happened.” My dad got into the ambulance with my sister while my brother and I stayed to just wrap everything up. My mom finally came after what seemed like forever because I could only get ahold of my older sister. The car was completely totaled, especially after the fire fighters axed the hood, looking to stop the battery. So we got all of the belongings…nothing was lost but my brother’s cell phone battery was which extremely bizarre. We head to the emergency room to find out my grandfather was in the emergency room as well from a gasoline burn he received at work (he works on airplanes). I headed to Cayla’s room but saw no one but my dad. It was a family reunion for real! I’d never seen everyone get to one place so fast. Anyway, the nurse rolls Cayla in. After 30 seconds of looking at her lying there, face swollen, eyes closed shut…I couldn’t keep it together anymore. I got angry and frustrated because the whole ride I told her to sit back, stop playing with my neck and put her seatbelt on. Cayla was sitting in car Indian-style with no seatbelt. She is 5’10” only weight 130lbs. and she had on a spaghetti strap with lounge-shorts so the glass gashed all of her leg. This was the second time something like this has happened. The first time she was about 3 years old and she flew from the seat to the floor, but this time…it was no mercy. The doctor informed us that she had 2 clavicle bone fractures, 3 pelvic area fractures, a bruised lung, a gash in her knee that would need stitching, 2 minute areas of bleeding in the brain that would need monitoring, an optical nerve in her right eye that would need monitoring and 3 chipped teeth. When a doctor mentions a fracture, it is meant that the bone has been cracked or broken. She is going to need physical therapy and has to be in a wheel chair until she heals.

After seeing that Cayla was stable and was going to make it, I decided to get everyone’s take on the event.

My dad had two or three small rips in his shirt because of the glass, and Cayla’s blood stained into his shirt. He said that after he saw me let go of the steering wheel, he tried to grab it but that’s when he saw the grass so his hand grabbed the latch above his window. He remembers hearing my brother, Chris, and I talk but he couldn’t hear Cayla. All he was thinking was about his children as the top of the car cave onto his head because of his tall frame. When the car stopped he said he heard me say something about moaning, but his door wouldn’t open, so he too had to jump out of the window in order to reach Cayla. His mind was racing the whole time because he has experienced a lot of deaths, one including his own son that died a month after his birth…he would have been our older brother.

My brother has only what I call “skater-boy” scratches; two or three typical elbow scratches. He said he saw me trying to control the steering wheel, but as he saw me let it go…he saw the steering wheel spinning on its own. His instincts kicked in because he said he knew something was coming that would be very impactful. That’s when he grabbed the roof after the first roll because he didn’t know we were going to flip; he just thought we were going to have a rough landing. He knew the hill gave the car an “umpf” so he started preparing for the turn by finding something to grasp onto because he had on no seatbelt while saying, “It’s not going to end this way.” After the second roll he saw my dad’s seat in front of him so he grabbed the headrest and heard my dad mumbling because by then the airbag and popped out onto my father’s face. After the third roll he lost control of the seat, being slung to the opposite side of the car, hitting his head on Cayla’s door; the seat behind the driver’s side. He said Cayla’s name, now realizing that she wasn’t inside the car. After the fourth roll he grabbed the roof again which made him land in the space between the front and back seat.  When the car stopped he heard my dad’s and I voice but not Cayla’s because he already knew she wasn’t in the car. He was able to open his door so he got out, but just wishing he had a flash light because he couldn’t see everything clearly because it was dark. He said it was like a bad episode of “House”.

Cayla said she grabbed the roof after the first roll. After the second roll when her window shattered, she just remembers flying with the right side of her body clenched up with her eyes closed. She landed face first on the ground. Being traumatized, she said that she will always where a seatbelt now and she never wants to drive.

I gained a seatbelt burn, a tender/bruised left shoulder and left side of my neck from the rolls and body shock, a couple of welt type scratches on my lower leg, and skin detached from a couple of my toes from walking on glass. My older sister later looked at me and said my back and neck had minor finger-nail type scratches because of the glass that rip through my shirt.

The only thing that keeps bothering my brother and I is the fact that we don’t believe, that people believe, that we are actually okay…the only person that we want them to be worried about is Cayla. My brother was making jokes after the accident, and I was calm just letting everyone know that it was a terrible incident but life can’t just stop because of this…we must push forward. I believe that it will help Cayla to become/stay strong if she sees that everyone else is holding up. I feel that the doctors are doing all they can do, my dad is by her side, so I need to just make sure everything is taken care of at home…including my brother. Am I surprised about how I’m holding up? Not at all. Do I feel that even the strongest person can break, including me? Yes. When will that happened? I don’t know, but I know it will happen within my lifetime.

P.S. Please check your car’s crash test rating, and always wear a seatbelt.