a car crash.
A very serious CW warning — this piece details the trauma of a car accident through a first-person telling and with two post-crash photographs.
When I close my eyes, sometimes I am right back in the driver’s seat of my 2014 Scion iQ. I am back behind a wheel I had turned for five years. Behind a wheel where everything was normal. When I first took the iQ on a test drive, I could not believe how much fun I had. It was small. It was reactive. It was practical for a single, childless woman. It even fit a massage table in the back — which I made sure was possible since my first career was in esthetics. I felt safe in my little car. It kept me safe one last time on June 2, 2021.
I have heard that eternity can sometimes just be a moment, probably from Doctor Who or Alice in Wonderland. Now, I have felt it. I have felt a lifetime without my partner next to me. I have screamed in the middle of an intersection. I have been a one-woman horror show, covered in blood sitting in front of a dive bar next to a crowded intersection.
Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I hear the metal. The impact. The bang. I suspect that I will never forget that sound and feeling.
On Wednesday, June 2, 2021, my boyfriend of nearly five years, Ian, and I were on our way to dinner. I was driving, and it was a short journey we had made weekly since moving across town. I remember the subject of our conversation, in bits and pieces. It was a lively, after-work discussion of professional development and goals.
I had landed my dream first job a year and a half ago, and he had been headhunted for his current position. We were laughing, exchanging ideas, looking forward to a meal at our regular place that we get Long Island iced teas and order off a menu that spans burgers, steaks, salads, and caramel apple pie. Comfort food. But it is our place — it is where we decompress and refresh our minds with familiar company. Our “Cheers,” where everybody knows our name
The restaurant is darker than outdoors and has old, dark wood finishes everywhere. There are Tiffany glass-style lamps everywhere, along with faux windows illuminating the stained glass from behind.
The drive was uneventful, for the most part. I took the scenic roads from our new house to downtown. I pulled up to a stoplight and looked down the block. There was construction blocking half of the parking spots on one side of the street, due to a building the size of a city block was under renovation. I saw the restaurant, Doc Pierce’s, and tried to determine if it was busy while I was stopped. That is the last normal moment I remember.
That is the last bit of the “before” reality I have.
I do not remember falling asleep, but I woke up in the split second after the hit.
I remember screaming.
In my mind, I was screaming “No!”
My foot remained on the brake, and the man in front of us seemed to be turning to the left. The world went black again for a moment. I saw him holding onto his steering wheel as we pushed into the back end of his car.
When I woke up again, nothing was as it had been. Had it only been seconds?
My head was tilted back. I woke up as if I had been sleeping in class, trying so hard not to fall asleep that I slumped with my mouth open. I remember seeing the ceiling and sitting up. It was like shaky camera work in the movies. My ears were ringing. It felt like waking up from a dream. It tried to shake it off.
I saw busted glass.
I saw airbags.
I saw Ian, in the passenger seat, slumped in an odd position with blood coming down his neck from somewhere I could not determine.
I screamed for help. I screamed and screamed.
I screamed at Ian. He was waking up, but he had hit his head. He could not enunciate. His words sounded very round. Every word he tried to say, came out as a sound instead. He looked scared.
I screamed for help again.
I saw blood, and I moved myself within the car. I put my hands behind his ears. It looked like the blood was coming from behind them. Ian was breathing heavily and was making a sound like a wounded animal on his exhales. It was not a grunt. It was like a panicked heave, over and over. I asked him if he was OK, and knew he was not, but told him to stay with me. I tried applying pressure blindly without moving his head. I started holding his head still.
I was trying to save him. I thought he might be dying. I screamed again for help.
My door opened, and a woman asked me if I was hurt. I screamed at her that we needed help. I do not remember if I saw an EMT open the passenger side door before I got out of the car. The woman coaxed me out of the car, telling me the EMTs were worried about the front airbags deploying and hurting me more. If I could walk, I needed to get out of the car.
I grabbed Ian, and said “I LOVE YOU” at him, and told him they were telling me to get out of the car. I would find him help, but I could not speak in that large of sentences yet. I grabbed my phone, which was still in the center of the car.
When I got out of the car, I do not remember seeing much.
I was in a black ankle length romper, with yellow 1.5-inch suede heels. I was limping, and I stopped by the passenger side door. There was another woman, another witness, who was there talking with the EMT.
I did not realize I was now standing in the middle of a main throughway at 5:30 p.m. on a weekday. My car now sat in the middle of the intersection.
The EMT said we needed to call 911 and tell them we needed more people.
I had my iPhone in my hand, going into shock, and I dialed it. I handed my blood-covered phone to the woman, who took it carefully, and talked to dispatch. I was told I needed to get out of the street, and I said I would not leave until he had help. Someone told me, he had help and more was coming.
I limped over to the sidewalk, finally out of traffic. I did not sit down, but I watched as an EMT knelt into the passenger side door of my little Scion iQ and started working on Ian.
I asked for my phone back.
At some point, I took two photos of the scene. I do not know if it was a knee- jerk action as a newspaper reporter, myself, or if I just did not believe what I was seeing and needed to document it for later.
My glasses had flown off my face at some point during the impact. I only realized when I noticed how much I was squinting. I was worried about Ian, and his parents, and my parents, and my work.
I noticed that it was not just my hands covered in blood. I was covered in blood from my fingertips to my elbows. It was a lot of blood. It pooled in the creases of my palms.
Normally, I have a blood phobia. I take Klonopin to get my blood drawn. I must look away during movies. I cannot even speak about getting bloodwork done without physically recoiling and my head starting to float.
In the moment, I was not phased.
In my head, Ian could be dying. I had seen head injuries before. My father had survived a nasty crash between his bicycle and a commercial garbage truck. He had worn a helmet, and still shattered part of his skull. His injury landed him in the intensive care unit, and I knew acutely just how many things had to go right after that horrible accident for him to still be alive and well today.
The rest of the scene is a mess of memories. At some point, an EMT came over and asked me to sit down. He asked if I had any numbness or soreness, and I said my hands and feet were going numb from panic, but that Ian needed the help, not me. The EMT squatted down next to me, as a stern police officer asked for my drivers license and insurance card. I dug around in my purse for my wallet, and handed the officer my drivers license, but told him my insurance card was in the car. He seemed annoyed. He walked off with my driver’s license.
I sat there, worried, with an EMT checking on me. I was not moving from where I was — I needed to watch my car.
I called Ian’s parents. First his dad, then his mom. I do not remember what I said, but I believe I said we were in a car accident, and EMTs were working on getting Ian out of the car, and I did not know what happened, but he was going to be taken to a hospital at some point. I know it must have panicked her. Letting his parents know felt like a mission, and my duty, because nobody else would be able to at the scene. I did not have answers, but I needed them to know what had happened. She stopped me mid-sentence and prayed with me. His mom is a United Methodist pastor, and I am not religious, but I was willing to take on anything to help him. So, I sat. I breathed. I prayed with her. On a sidewalk in front of a smokey dive bar that I have been to many times, I sat and prayed. Hard.
After that, I messaged my dad that there had been an accident. He asked what I needed, and I said I would let him know where they took me. I texted my mom. I texted my bosses.
I sent my bosses, my manager and editor, a photo of the car, and said I did not have a car anymore and would not be at work the next day.
At some point, the second woman I had seen who had used my phone to talk to 911 came over to me. She told me to look at the car.
“He’s OK. He’s standing up,” she said. “He’s going to be OK.”
I saw Ian, stand briefly out of my crumpled car, with so much gauze wrapped around his head that it looked like a white turban. He stood up and sat down on an ambulance bed. Then, he was wheeled away. I took several deep breaths after that point.
My driver’s license was returned to me at some point. I was annoyed because finding it in my purse, I had gotten a drop of blood on my COVID-19 vaccine card.
The woman who told me that Ian was getting out of the car offered me a Capri Sun.
“It’s the only thing I have in my car with me, but I think you might need it later,” she said.
It felt silly, but I accepted it, promising to drink it later and put it in my purse.
The EMT who had told me to sit down told me I needed to go into the other ambulance with him. First, could I tell him who the president of the United States was? I thought for a second to myself, about the people in this country who do not accept the 2020 election results.
“Biden,” I said, realizing I was taking too long. I blurted it out as if in panic.
Could I walk? I said yes. They helped me up, off the sidewalk, and I limped over up the steps into the ambulance where I found a gurney or bed waiting. I was surprised to see benches on each side, one with an EMT already sitting there at a screen. She greeted me.
I hopped up and squinted at her.
“I know you!” I said, and she looked a little confused. I am sure she thought I was even more hurt than I was letting on.
“No, I’m sorry. I have seen your picture before. You are engaged to my former classmate Zach,” I tried to explain.
She was very nice, and even if as concerned as she should have been, she went along with it. Very conversationally leading me through the things she needed to address. I answered her questions and got hooked up to the monitor with the stickers on my arms. I had an oxygen hose placed beneath my nose.
“This won’t feed oxygen in, but it will help us measure your oxygen levels,” she said, and then clipped another sensor on my fingertip for good measure.
I had been asking which hospital they would take us to and if we would be taken to the same one. I had not asked about anyone else in any of the other vehicles. I could not remember much, but I assume it happened so quickly. One moment I was laughing with Ian, and the next he could not speak.
“Memorial?” my new friend asked another EMT.
She got the nod.
“We are taking you both to Memorial Hospital,” she said.
I immediately texted my dad, my mom, Ian’s parents. My bosses told me to call them as soon as I could.
“I’m in an ambulance,” I texted back.
My dad said he would be on his way. Ian’s parents said thank you for the update.
The ride to the hospital was the safest ride I could have ever felt. I could not see where we were going. I had a person sitting on each side of me, asking me questions.
I asked if there was something in the nose hose since I was feeling so calm. Both EMTs shook their head.
I realized my shock must be in a different stage now. I did not feel panicked. I felt calm. Like I had no control, but the right people were in charge now. I realized Ian probably did not have his phone.
The ambulance came to a stop and the doors opened. Suddenly, the doors I had been facing were opened and the last light of the day was visible. I was buckled into the table, and they said there would be a bump as they lowered me to the street below.
The bed attached to a hydraulic sounding mechanism, that first tilted me slightly forward, and gently lowered me down. I was then wheeled into the emergency room, where we paused.
“Do you see the man in the red hat?” one of the EMTs wheeling me in said. He pointed at him, putting his closer so I could see where he meant. I nodded. “That’s Dr. Thomas. He is the best trauma doctor in the state of Indiana. Your boyfriend is in the best hands he can be right now.”
My eyes stung, and a couple of tears leaked out.
“Thank you. I’m really happy to know that” I said to him.
The EMTs were instructed to wheel me to a certain room, and I was taken in, and had to shift from the roller bed to the room’s table. By that point, I had been lying down for 20 minutes at least. My hip hurt more. My pelvis hurt more. My chest was starting to hurt. I grunted my way to the table and let out a big sigh when I made it.
“It hurts more than it did when I got in,” the nurses nodded and said that would happen.
They took my identification and helped me into a medical gown. My arms were dry with blood now. I tried to keep track of where my phone was, where my ID was.
My dad walked in.
“How are you?” he said, and I cried. He grabbed my bloody, crusted hand and held it. My father is not an emotional man, but he was here, and he was going to be a stabilizing force for me. He did not have to say much, but he asked a few questions. I told him what I could. I told him about Ian’s condition the last time I saw him. I showed him my car. I told him that my mother had text, and that she was now on her way to the hospital.
After over a year of COVID-19 pandemic rules, we still have masks on. The virus was not gone, but vaccinations had lessened its severity in much of the population. But the hospital, and especially the emergency rooms, were limited visitation. I was unsure if the doctors would let my mother in to see me.
My answer came a short time later, when my mother texted me that she was with Ian. She had tried to come see me, but the limit was one visitor per room. Ian’s parents were a state away, so she sat with him.
I was relieved. Even at 32, your family being there makes all the difference. For me, that is my parents. For others, it can be others who have stepped into those roles.
While I was able to walk, I was told to wash my hands and arms off, and face, if I could. I was still covered in blood, but it was dry now. They wanted to see if I had any cuts that needed to be addressed.
The warm water felt holy. I watched the red go down the drain. The deep burgundy diluted to a light pink as it left. I had a couple of very small cuts on my forehead, but largely, the blood had not been my own.
I was asked multiple times where I was hurt, how much it hurt. I was sent to get X-rays. It was even harder to move from the bed to the x-ray table this time. I was getting more and more sore by the minute. I had to shift how I was laying now. My right leg hurt more. My hips hurt a lot. My chest felt heavy.
I had my hips and chest x-rayed multiple times. It felt like forever, but the technicians’ voices were normal. I was still panicked.
My vitals were normal. From beginning to end. Even in the ambulance, I was told my blood pressure was perfect. It made no sense because nothing else was right.
My mother sent me updates from the emergency room across the way. Ian was coherent. He would be taken to get a CT scan soon. She would keep me updated.
I did not want to leave until I knew what was going on. I figured; I would likely be leaving the hospital tonight without my dinner partner.
My body kept feeling worse. More sore. Every time I mentioned it to a nurse, I was told that was normal, and that it would likely be worse over the next few days.
I struggled to get back into my romper. I laughed while struggling with the pants legs, that of course, this would happen while I wore the most difficult to navigate piece of clothing. I put my heels back on, and my legs both turned in. My hips were turned.
I had a hip contusion and a chest contusion, according to the doctor. I learned that contusion meant something like a big, deep bruise, but not quite internal bleeding. It was widespread and would probably hurt, a lot, over the next few days. I was instructed to “take it easy,” and take ibuprofen and acetaminophen.
After getting into my romper, I was very sweaty. At some point, a Sierra Mist had been brought to me, and I sipped down the rest of it. My head was still a little woozy, and I felt like I was being dramatic, but I also felt potentially faint. I put my head down on the bed while sitting in the discharge wheelchair. Before I got dressed, I had signed the discharge paperwork, but now, my dad hailed the nurse back in.
She checked my vitals again, and said I was probably just panicking, and processing the trauma. I was going to be OK, and as soon as I felt OK, we could leave.
“How can I see Ian? We were in this accident together,” I asked.
I was told I needed to go out in the waiting room and ask the attendee there. I could explain it to them, and they would let me back.
With my mother already being in the room, I could not go back. I argued that we lived together. We were in the same accident. The answer remained firm. I asked if my mother came out, could we swap? They said no.
I told my dad I wanted to wait to see if he would be discharged. If the CT scan was nearing completion. I messaged my mom.
After listening to a poor guy vomiting into a bag a few seats away, and another few people coughing and sneezing loudly, I finally relented and let my dad wheel me out of the waiting room. I did not want COVID-19 on top of this, and neither did he.
He wheeled me down to a retired waiting area. It was blocked off by seats, but it did not bother my dad. He put on some PBS on his phone, and bought me M&Ms from a vending machine, knowing I had not eaten.
If I had a mission, I was not crying. My mission was to hear Ian’s voice.
After maybe 15 or 20 more minutes, we tried to get back to the room again. I was informed, instead, that I could call the room my mother and Ian sat in directly.
I did, and heard my mother pick up the phone.
She had been texting Ian’s parents, after giving her their numbers. She had spoken with them a bit. I had been getting updates from her. He was still waiting for the CT scan. She told me that we should go home, he was not coming home tonight. She would stay with him as long as she could and give me updates until he was settled.
I sobbed, and accepted defeat. I asked my dad to wheel me out of the hospital and to his car.
By the time he wheeled me to his Toyota Corolla, I could not stand. I had to shift myself from seat to seat. I had not had any painkillers at that point, and I remembered the Capri Sun.
I got it out of my purse. My dad offered some ibuprofen. I took both before we left.
I realized I had not had dinner. It was after 10 p.m. now. We went to a Mcdonald's where I ordered a full sugar Sprite, a hamburger, and a small fry. My dad, a vegetarian, ordered an apple fritter at the friendly attendant’s recommendation.
He navigated us home, where Rizzo, my dog, was waiting. She knew how long to wait for us on certain nights, and we had not come home at a normal time for a Wednesday night.
I went to get out of the car and found I could hardly stand. Dad put his arm around me. He helped support me, as each step was more pained than the last. It took what felt like 10 minutes to get from the car to the door. I decided as soon as I got into the house, that getting on my bed would be a nightmare. I would sleep on the couch.
But I would not sit yet — I needed to get changed. I needed to go to the bathroom. I could not walk, but my dad found a step ladder in the house I could use as a walker. I hobbled down the hallway to the bathroom, maybe 20 feet. I had to rest halfway there, and sat on the top step, sad at what I had become.
It took 30-minutes for me to remove my romper, take a quick trip to the bathroom, wash the remaining blood out of my hair and come back to the couch. Normally, that could take me five minutes.
I sat down on the couch. Defeated. Sad. Sore. Worried. Panicked, in cycles. My emotions kept going between making jokes, texting my mom for updates, texting updates to Ian’s parents, and then crying.
I finally ate my hamburger, which was cold by the time I sat down. I could not touch my fries.
My mom called — she put Ian on. My entire being relaxed when I heard “Hi baby.”
He was using words. He was on heavy pain medications but had staples in the back of his head to close his cut. His CT scan came back normal. He was going to spend the night in the hospital. My mom was going to go home.
I thanked her. I told him to rest, that I was OK. That I would see him tomorrow.
My dad spent the night. He made up a bed on the other end of large sectional. We each had separate corners, and Rizzo slept in the middle at both of our feet.
I tried to sleep.
But every time I closed my eyes, I heard the metal. The bang. The sound I could not quite describe. Over ten hours, I slept for two, fitfully. Waking up each time I found myself in the front seat of my car again.
