Car accident
It was a nice evening, mid February 2004. Two days earlier, my wife gathered lots of blueberries and I was to deliver them to our children. I stopped my car on red lights, waited until lights changed to green and then drove forward very carefully not to spill blueberries from overflowing baskets. My eyes were fixed on tram rails in the middle of the road and then, in the corner of my eye, I noticed a big dark body going full speed on my car.
BANG! Shock, strong pain, and feeling of absolute helplessness. I am seriously injured and cannot do anything - was the only thought. I closed my eyes in resignation, but then opened them for a while.
Just in time - my car was still driving... directly into the gate of a cemetery!
Oh, no! Not yet! - my mind protested but the body was still numb. The car jumped on the kerb, I felt a strong pain and it brought me to action. I turned the steering wheel directing the car back on the road, but I had no idea how to stop it. The gear change lever did not move, I could not find the clutch nor brake, I was only pressing the accelerator pedal making lots of noise on first gear.
Eventually I stopped the car in some side street. Door on the driver side was blocked and I felt urge to leave car as soon as possible in fear of explosion of fuel tank. Despite terrible pain, I climbed to the other door, fell out on the grass and lost consciousness for a while. When I regained it, I forgot about risk of fuel tank explosion and looked into the car to retrieve my mobile phone. But then the first thing I noticed were blueberries spilled everywhere on the floor. I started collecting them in my hand, then I looked for the basket on the rear seat. There was such a mess, that I realized I will never make order with it. I lost consciousness again.
When I opened my eyes, there was some man standing over me. I told him there should be mobile phone somewhere on the front seat. Next picture I remember were paramedics shaking gently my arm.
- Do you hear me?
- Yes.
- What is your name?
- Lech.
- Lech, I will ask you some questions.. do you know what day of the week we have?
- It is... of course I know - (..bloody hell, what is it??..) - well, yesterday I was on call, so it must have been Monday.. but today? ..today??
- Good. And what year we have?
- What year? What year? What a stupid question!.. what year? OLYMPIC YEAR! next Olympic Games will be in China! But where will be this year's Olympic Games?????
Few minutes later, I landed in ambulance vehicle with a collar around my neck and some needles in my arm.
- Have you drank any alcohol tonight?
- No.
- Sorry Lech, we have to take a breath test, this is required by the police. Please blow in this pipe.
But I could not blow out anything, I could hardly breathe at all.
- Take a blood sample, you are already connected to my veins.
We reached Box Hill Hospital, I was X-rayed, stuffed with morphine and connected to various drips. In the morning, new series of X-rays and scans. They declared 6 ribs broken, partial lung collapse and said it was a miracle I did not puncture my lungs when I was crawling out from the car.
I started moving, getting up, walking slowly and soon I won the name - bionic man. At the evening I felt fit enough to return home.
- We cannot send you home as long as you are on morphine.
- Then cut off this morphine, I can sustain some pain.
- We see that you can, but then you will not be breathing deep enough and you have big part of lungs squashed. You need at least 3 days of deep breathing to have them recovered.
I was moved from Emergency to regular ward. It was terribly boring place. Being connected to drips, I had very little freedom of movement, there was beautiful weather outside and I was rotting in the bed. On the second day, a young doctor came to change needles in my veins. Immediately I was alarmed - why a doctor? .. this should be done by a nurse? I lowered my eyes, so the doctor would not see my doubts. But he must have felt them.
- Oh sorry, I have to try again...
After two more tries he called a nurse for help. She was a young trainee but together they managed to place needle in my arm. The doctor swept sweat from his brow, the nurse was still busy connecting various pipes on the drip hanger. It was time for a lunch break..
- Sandra!! We are going! - group of young trainee nurses was calling from the corridor.
- Yes, yes, I am going with you, wait a minute! - shouted back my nurse still entangled in a web of plastic pipes.
- Sandra! We are not waiting for youuu - laughed her colleagues.
- I finished! - shouted Sandra triumphantly - Have a nice day - this was directed to me. And off she ran.
I corrected my position on the bed and then one of the pipes disconnected, my blood was flowing freely on the floor.
- NURSE!!! - I shouted and pressed button in panic.
After short time a nurse arrived. I suppose she was from Philippines, probably had no company for lunch. She was quite experienced and immediately fixed the drip. But I did not hide my disappointment. Next day, in the morning, I was disconnected from all pipes and released home, at least one day earlier than expected. What a relief!
My car did not look that bad, but it was classified by the insurance company as a write off. What a pity! My mechanic told me that this model of Toyota Corolla was unbreakable, but he forgot about accidents.
I was on rehabilitation program paid by Transport Accident Commission. I visited physiotherapist, did some exercises under his eye and got some homework to do. The homework was quite painful, but I hissed with pain and worked on it. I was apparently too diligent. After 3 more visits, physiotherapist told me I did not need any more help as I was doing more than any physiotherapist could possibly advice me to do. It was some disappointment. It was so nice to do exercises in well equipped gym and be praised every few minutes, and I could have had easily for 4 more weeks. If only the physiotherapist was not so fair to the insurer.
But not everybody played so fair. I felt wronged. I was badly injured as a result of somebody violating basic traffic rules. I checked with insurance company if I was entitled to any sort of compensation for my sufferings and many other inconveniences. No, was the answer, your claim could be considered only in the case of permanent disability.
- So, can I sue the other driver for causing the accident?
No, the state government closed this avenue few years earlier as the costs of car accidents were sky-rocketing. The only exception was, if the police classified the case as criminal.
I visited my police station. They checked the file. No, it was not criminal, the other driver was penalized $800 for crossing road on red light and causing serious accident, but he objected and the penalty has been waived.
- On what grounds it has been waived - I asked.
- He said, that it was you, who drove over the red light and he produced a witness for it.
Now I felt hot sweat in my head and cold sweat on my back.
- So it was me, who drove over the red light! - I shouted. - So why you haven't penalized me?
- Oh, you have a very good witness. There was a car driving in the back, he saw the accident and witnessed, that the other driver went over the red light. While the other guy's witness said that she did not see the actual accident, she turned head when she heard the bang and got impression that you drove over the red light.
- So isn't it obvious, that the other witness is not reliable at all?
- Well, we have two witnesses contradicting each other. We would have to bring this case to the court to sort it out. Considering no big harm had happened, we closed the case.
Amen.
