Two years since I was injured driving home from work and ending up in the hospital for seven months. Hit by a third party driving the other direction who crossed the centreline and drove into me.
I read through the accident and medical reports. They say I was conscious and talking to first responders as they were cutting me out of the car. I remember none of that. I remember driving on a clear day, bare dry roads, and then nothing but blackness. Next I remember talking to paramedics in an ambulance on a stretcher as they asked me for an emergency contact. I told them to check my phone. They said they could not find my phone and again asked me for an emergency contact. I said who memorizes phone numbers anymore? Then I said right after if they could drive on a smoother road as this one was really bumpy. Everything then went dark.
I came to in a hospital bed in the ICU in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. I could not speak as I had tubes in my nose and mouth. I found out I underwent emergency procedures, my left arm was in a cast due to a broken wrist, stitches in my left elbow, rods running down my legs with screws going into my legs to hold together shattered femurs and a broken tibia. There were fractured ribs and a fractured L5 vertebra. I could feel the blood in my hair where glass cut my scalp. There were still a few pieces of glass in my hair. Both of my feet were purple from the impact. Friends only found me because I had not shown up at home and they called around to hospitals thinking the worst. Days later I would undergo an eight hour operation to properly put my legs back together.
It was not until days later that I found out what happened. I do not remember any medical staff really telling me anything until well after the last operation. This is the second time I was almost killed in a car accident. July 16, 1994 I was driving south down Highway 795 south of Calmar, Alberta when a pickup truck drove through a stop sign eastbound on Glen Park Road and broadsided the car I was in almost slicing it in half. I was really shook up but nothing was broken. There damn well better not be someone trying to kill me off with a vehicle a third time.
There has been progress. Slow and painful progress. No one tells you about the pain you will face. That may be a good thing. If I knew beforehand I am not sure I could have faced it.
I will not mark the anniversary next year at this time. This event has ruled my life for too long and I am doing my best to move on enough to bury it. You can largely overcome a lot of things in life if you keep chipping away at it. I am gaining more strength in my legs and my legs are getting more used to supporting my full body weight. It will take a long time.
Today I will out for a drive somewhere enjoying being alive.
