Things Will Never Go As Planned
We saved for a bit to finally buy a car. We took awhile because we were riddled with bills from our second miscarriage. That day was a sweet day despite the city festering with California fall heat. My husband picked me up from my college after my last class ended. He had the day off from work. I didn't have to take public transit back home since his schedule allowed him to snag me. He would always drop me off in the morning. We had a system with sharing a car. I had finished a midterm and felt confident about my grade. We did some sweet kissing in our car before he drove us to visit my parents.
He had put in $1,000 and I put in $1,000 to get our car. It was in great shape. Interior wise and exterior wise no complaints. It passed the smog. The wheels and breaks were new. The motor was thoughtfully cared for and had no issues. The mileage wasn't too bad but not too great. It was good enough for us to get to A, B, and maybe at times C for another two years, before we needed to get a new up to current year model. We had a starting point again to get us back on track with our goals. Gone were the days of public transit and biking to work or school.
Life will rotate a full 360 degrees on you out of no where. Isn't it funny how it does that? How many times does it turn so forcefully until we no longer flicker our flame? How many times have you survived?
We were just a parking spot away from getting off and walking to my parents' apartment. All of a sudden a wreckage happened. I could hear cars crashing behind us and I saw a big truck speeding at us. I yelled from the impact. My husband swerved to safety preventing a worse collision. A half second moment of silence and then we looked at each other. We were okay but the people behind us were totally not.
I unbuckled my seat belt. I got out not feeling any pain yet. No blood no broken bones thankfully for us both. My husband was running to help unpin a young woman from a fence. She was tossed out of her vehicle from the impact. The truck and a fence had sandwiched her in between them. She was yelling frantically. The guy in the vehicle who hit all of us (and five other cars) squirmed himself out of the window and booked it. He abandoned the woman he was riding with. My husband was too concerned getting the woman freed from the fence and truck. I was already calling 9-1-1.
I glanced at my husband. When he finally got her free from being pinned to the fence we were scared. She was pregnant. You could tell she was very far along her pregnancy. Would the baby make it? We had just lost a child in a pregnancy through miscarriage so we felt so much sympathy for the woman.
When the ambulance came she fainted and they rushed her to the emergency room. Many were rushed to the emergency room at least three others. The police took reports from us and witnesses. The guy who was driving 65-70 M.P.H. on a 25 M.P.H. street that caused all this mess was no where to be found. After getting a receipt for our case number we let the cops do the rest.
The next day I followed up with a doctor with my husband and a lawyer. I had bruising on the side of my ribs and my back was thrown out to the right from the impact so was my neck. I had to go start seeing the chiropractor right away to realign my back and neck. My husband's neck was thrown out too not as bad as mine since I got the impact on the passenger side.
My husband realizing getting the car and not keeping the motorcycle kept us alive.
Funny enough we sold our motorcycle to get this car. My husband and I kind of laughed nervously after the accident happened. The nervous kind of laugh that you do when you realize if we still had that motorcycle we would have died. Being in our car shielded us from the chaos from other cars...bigger ones.
It was torture having to go for three months three times a week to get my back realigned into place. Especially when the end of a full time semester was near. I was so upset. My back was in agony all the time. My husband managed to get the police report three days after the accident.
So what went wrong? What happened?
- The person who caused the accident did not have a driver's license.
- The person who caused the accident did not have a permit.
- The person who caused the accident was not the owner of the vehicle or had insurance.
- The person who caused the accident had just shot up meth and was driving high.
The summary from the police report: the guy's baby momma yelled at the driver of the vehicle for shooting up behind her back, and for getting a phone call from his dealer as they were going to 7-11 to buy some nachos. The driver was so angry he sped up and lost control of his vehicle. Isn't that stupid? How he easily disregarded the consequences of not following the law the moment he walked into the car?
Him not following the law ended up in a lot of injury, harm, and unfortunately death. It saddens me to say that his baby momma lost the baby from the impact that happened. We eventually had a joint law suit with all the other victims involved in the accident and won. The baby momma testified against him as a witness verifying his madness. Obviously, they broke up.
It's common logic. Laws are placed to prevent chaos in our society. Laws are part of the constructs that protect us. Obeying those laws saves lives from unnecessary death.
I highly encourage everyone to rethink before drunk driving (or getting in a car with someone who is drunk driving), driving without a permit or license (or letting them drive you), because no one is excluded from human error. Protect the lives of those around you and yours as well.
Silver Lining?
We won our lawsuit and are being paid for the damages and repairs we had to give our vehicle. Two days after the accident I had to go to the LA: ZOO with my best friend for our anthropology project that was due in a day. I had no way of getting around this.
I was so bummed but having the best time I could have with injuries because anthropology is my major. After four hours of walking around, documenting, and photographing the right primates we were done. Just when I was about to leave with my friend I ran across Lights. I was so stunned. I listened to her since 7th grade. At the time I was a Sophmore in college when I saw her at the LA:ZOO.
Her song Face Up meant the world to me during my second miscarriage. I entered a terrible depression and that song held comfort to me. Especially when I was alone at night because of my husband's night schedule. Then a few months later I was able to enjoy her concert Midnight Machines in LA at El Rey Theater. She played Face Up that night I cried happy tears.
