Does this look like a car with a surviving passenger? Well, it is, and that survivor is me. We made (what I believe to be) a faulty decision Tuesday night to keep on driving home when we had the chance to stay in New Jersey with friends that night and finish our trip home from Boston on Wednesday. I wanted to get on home...Britt relished the drive...there are a dozen reasons why we made that choice, and it doesn't matter now. What's done is done.
Anyway, it was around 2:15am. We were almost home. Roughly twenty miles to go. Ava was sleeping peacefully in the back. I had recently dozed off in my seat. Suddenly, I was awakened by screeching tires. I lunged forward in my seat (as one would in bed from a nightmare) and felt myself begin screaming the most primal sound of terror I have ever heard or felt. The road was a series of blurs before me. We swerved right, then left, then right again, then I felt us spinning. I have never been so frightened in all my life. It was horrifying not knowing if we would live or die in the split seconds that would follow.
Britt was doing the best he could with the car. I could see that. It was like a live version of Pole Position; I only hoped we wouldn't end in flames like on the video game. All I could do was pray. I screamed, "GOD, SAVE US! PLEASE SAVE US!!!" repeatedly, with every fiber of my being.
Time didn't go into slow motion like it sometimes does during a crash. At least not for me. I realized we were spinning out of control this time, and Britt could no longer hold the road. Our final donut shot us backwards into a ditch that sent us rolling, airborne for a second or two. By this point, I am pretty sure my eyes were closed. I had ducked my head and crossed my arms and hands over my face and head as best I could and waited, praying. I realized we were being tossed about, that we were rolling over, that we might all be dead in a matter of seconds. I waited. And then the car landed, bouncing, and finally came to rest, upright...a relief. I realized that I was alive, that I had survived. This is what I saw when I opened my eyes, only it was dark and we were parked in brush.
I quickly confirmed that Britt was alive, all the while shouting hysterically things like, "I'm okay! Are you okay!? It's okay! We're going to be okay!
Everything's okay!" Then Britt yelled, "Ava? Are you okay!?" Nothing. I heard nothing. Again, he shouted. Again, I heard nothing. The mother bear in me already had me up and out of my
seatbelt, diving back there to find my child.
Where is she!? WHERE IS HER CAR SEAT!? I couldn't see. It was dark. I quickly flipped on the cab light and found a pile of blankets, coats, and pillows behind the driver seat and realized she was buried. I shouted, "She's buried! SHE'LL SUFFOCATE!!" as I hoisted items off her until I found her sweet face, wide-eyed and wondering, but calm. Hearing her say, "I'm okay" was probably the most wonderful thing I have ever heard in my life. I was almost giddy upon realizing that we rolled and yet we were all alive and fully functional. Ava was still in her car seat, and it was still attached to the car, but the lap belt back there (that holds her car seat in) had given a lot of slack in the course of all the swerving, spinning, and rolling. So she wasn't where I expected to find her; her seat was almost sideways, leaning into large, potentially-deadly projectiles on the driver side of the back seat. Thank God the car didn't roll the other way, or she would have had a mountain of heavy objects on her body, probably enough to kill her if it hit her in the wrong way. (Not to mention the fact that Britt has no head room to spare in that car as it is, and the roof would have caved on his side...)
At this point, we realized my hand was badly cut and bleeding, and then it occurred to me that my head was hurting, and I had glass in my hair. I felt like that was about it, so I just put that aside and explained to Ava that we had been in a car crash and assured her that everything was going to be okay, that the helpers would come to get us soon and take us to the hospital. She was so calm. I told Britt to turn on the hazard lights so that someone would find us. I reached out the empty window and waved to a passing car. They didn't stop. I turned back to my family and continued my parade of positive panic statements, as is my way in a panic situation. Before we even had time to start locating one of our cell phones, a truck pulled up. A man ran toward us yelling, "Have you been in an accident!? Is anyone hurt? Do you want me to call 911?" He ran back to his truck and grabbed a cell phone, came back to the car and began relaying all he knew... "Yes, a lady has been injured. Yeah, she said she hit her head pretty hard, and there's glass in her hand. There's also a three-year-old girl. She seems okay. And the man seems okay too." Help was on the way.
While the man was on the phone, I asked Britt what happened. "There was a deer in the road." My heart sunk. I never even thought of that. That danger never even crossed my mind when I suggested we drive straight-through that morning. I just wanted to get home to my comfort zone and wake up there in the morning. A deer. It pounded me in the gut.
The man came to let us know that Rescue Squad was on the way and suggested that I put my feet up and lean my seat back. There was broken glass everywhere, not to mention ten dollars worth of quarters that we were stowing for tolls. That's when I found Britt's glasses beside my leg. I hadn't even noticed he wasn't wearing them, only that he was alive and well. That sent my head into frenzy, thinking up "necessities" that we needed to retrieve from the vehicle before Rescue Squad arrived. "Where's my camera? Get my camera! And the
control journal! That has all our emergency information." Pause. "Where was my purse!? Find my purse. I think it's behind your seat." The thoughts trickled in, and I felt so materialistic to care about all these things. At the same time I felt so blessed to be sitting there thinking of all the small stuff because that meant I wasn't wrought with grief over a lost life. I didn't even think of the more important things like Ava's security object (our beloved "
Ahnnie") or her coat. Britt was holding together better than I was, so he got the more important things too. I was just trying not to panic by maintaining control of
something. It's funny what your mind will do in crisis situations...how differently people respond to the same situation.
Rescue Squad finally arrived and surrounded us with their presence like bees gently buzzing about. First order of business was getting me into a neck brace. That was a pain, both literally and figuratively. My neck wasn't hurting much until they stabilized it. Meanwhile, they set about taking Ava out the window. The rescuers were surprised when the electronic window rolled down like nothing had happened. Ava was such a good sport about the whole thing. I think it was sort of an adventure to her, and she was fine with all the chaos as long as she knew her Daddy and I were okay and we would all be together. They got her out safely, so she and Britt headed for the "hospital truck" (as Ava called it) to warm up and wait for my rescue.
I kept telling them I was so cold and asking if they could just let me get out. I knew my whole body was functional, as I had used every part to see about Ava less than fifteen minutes earlier. (I also realize why they couldn't risk that.) I could tell there was a little conference taking place to decide the safest course of action. My side of the car was badly damaged. The rescuer right outside my window finally told me they were going to need to cut the top off the car and fold it back to pull me out that way. He warned me it would be loud. Next thing I knew, someone had a blanket over my face. Any of you who know me well can imagine that this did not settle well, as I have an acute fear of suffocation, and I do not tolerate having my face covered! I promptly let that guy know he was about to have a panic attack on his hands. He moved the blanket, and I realized the door was no longer in my way and they were attempting to bring in a back board to put me on. I thought,
Wow they sure cut that door off quietly! Turns out they had just opened it and discovered that the car held up, and I was small and functional enough to get out onto the back board that way without using the jaws of life to tear open our car. There was another delay, and at some point I realized I was humming. I find myself doing that after I've been thinking of something uncomfortable or upsetting. It took me a second, but I finally got to the chorus and realized what it was:
"I sing because I'm happy! I sing because I'm free! His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me."I continued to hum as they jostled my body onto the back board and into the ambulance, reminding myself that God was watching. They slid me up next to my three-year-old, also lying on a back board in a neck brace (or a "special helmet," as she called it). She was so cheerful. We chatted about her experiences in the "hospital truck." Then I ribbed Britt about not giving me any more grief about my projectile paranoia, to which he responded, "We just got new brakes." We had indeed just gotten new brakes in New Jersey only three days earlier when they suddenly (and out of the blue) started squealing while we were heading out of Princeton toward Boston, our destination, after a night's stay with friends. Serendipity?
We were roughly thirty minutes from the hospital, but the ride seemed to take an hour. I made small talk with Ava, answered questions about my medical history, and just lay there, riding the rhythmic, bouncing waves. Whenever I see or hear an ambulance in action, I always say a prayer in my mind for the people involved in that situation. I lay there that night, wondering if anyone had prayed for us as we passed through the sleepy town.
Our hospital visit was comprised of the expected questions, probing, x-rays, Tetanus shot, etc. They had to push along my spine to check for fracture, and there was an area that was awfully tender. Then it dawned on me that I could have been paralyzed. I have never been so thrilled to wiggle my toes. I felt so fragile.
What if I move wrong, and that causes my compromised spine to fracture!? What if I develop paralysis later!? It was so frightening. Up to this point, I had felt so great, relative to the accident. And now here I was considering life with no use of my limbs. I was all alone in there for a while after my x-rays. I wondered where all my people were. There had been a room full of them, and now no one seemed to know I had been delivered back from radiology. At last, someone came in to see about me. I was so relieved!
What if I had gone into an unexpected seizure or something!? Anyway, Britt came to check on me soon thereafter and told me that Ava was fine, and they were just watching her for a while. Eventually, the doctor came back to tell me my x-rays showed no spinal fracture (thank goodness) and set about picking glass out of my bloody hand.
We were all okay.
His eye is on the sparrow...and I know He watches me.
