The Accident

I've spoken of this before, here and there. As with most things that are intensely personal to me, I rarely speak of it, but since most of my actual friends and family aren't aware and don't get it, and formulating thoughts are good therapy at times, here we go. This may yet touch upon topics such as faith, spirituality, but not solid religion. If it offends...well, this my blog and no one's making you read it.

In the early part of 2007, my then wife and I moved to N.C. from the "greater Philadelphia area", or Wilmington, DE where we lived for 4 years or so, where I met some good people and friends at Comcast that I still have today. We more or less hit the ground running when we moved here, she found a job at a clothing store (ex is a retail queen), and I was hired by AT&T wireless support (where I learned more about cell phones than I cared to), all within two weeks. Her job started immediately, mine had to wait for the next training class, which was a few weeks out.

Midday, 18 April, 2007 my mother, grandmother took my wife to work in my grandmothers car. I was talked into going by the promise of lunch. We dropped my ex off at work, then went for lunch. Probably should have known something was up, since my grandmother, who was quite ill for some time, proposed iHOP for lunch; she had not eaten at an iHOP in over thirty years. They stopped by a fabric store, my mother cross-stitches, and we headed back home.
Now, my mother was diagnosed with diabetes about ten years ago, and at that time, as it turned out later, she had not taken her medicine that day. Ever see a diabetic eat a hearty lunch with no meds? My mother blacked out going into a corner a few miles away from the house and we hit a Rav4 head on, passenger side to passenger side, since the RAV4 driver didn't bother to try to avoid. A judge later slapped a lawsuit down due to his non-avoidance of the accident. My grandmother was in the front seat passenger side, and I was sitting right behind her, reading Book 3 of A Song of Ice and Fire at the time (Think Game of Thrones). We were in a 1996 Hyundai Elantra nailing a RAV4, tht particular car had only a lapbelt in the back seat. The investigators determined at point of impact my grandmother and I hit our belts at over 120mph. The RAV4, with it's 42 million airbags and seatbelts, while totaled out, enabled the driver and passenger to walk out without a scratch with minor aches and pains after most of us got to the hospital.

I remember looking up, seeing the RAV4 just before the hit, some spinning and then my mother yelling at me to wake up. I had a Dell laptop on the seat next to me, it apparently flew up and smacked the hell out of the back of my head, since it had a crack in the top plastics that matched perfectly a knot on my head that I kept for about a week. We had landed in a 10 foot wide ditch that was about four foot deep, it's been filled in a little bit since. In that small car, with the driver's side facing almost straight up, from door to road was almost a 7-8 foot distance. I am impressing the distance for the same reason 3 EMT's, a firefighter, a small cadre of nurses, and two doctors did. After I woke up, there was smoke everywhere and a smell of gas (no...that only happens in the movies) in the air. After I woke up, my training kicked in, I "put myself aside", and tried to check on my mother and grandmother. Mom ended up with a concussion, and a broken ankle, which was not life threatening. I unbuckled my seatbelt, realized my glasses went into orbit....somewhere, and leaned forward to check on my grandmother. She had a pulse and was breathing at the time, so I told her to hang on I was going to come around and try to help her out of the car, then my mother.

I climbed up to the driver's side of the car, brushed glass shards from the busted windows and pulled myself up to the top of the car, and jumped to the road pavement. I hit the ground on both feet, tried to steady myself, and nearly passed out again. As I was trying to clear my head, the driver of another vehicle came running up to tell me that he had called 911 a minute before I batman'd my way out of the car. I thanked him, and got back to my feet and headed over to my grandmother to try to help her out, but as it turned out the door was stuck fast on the slope of the ditch. She looked at me, I told her I was fine, asked if she was ok and she nodded to me. After that, my mother asked me to try to help her out the same way I went out...as it turned out, it wasn't going to be a good idea, since she had a broken ankle, and at the time my head was so tweaked I actually thought it was a 2 foot jump from the car (lol).

But...I sat back down with my grandmother, holding her hand until 2 ambulances and a firetruck from Benhaven Emergency Services arrived, who told this EMS trained guy to gtfo out and let them work, which I still think is funny. What was not funny to me at the time was their insistence on checking me out. I figured, I'm walking, talking, thinking somewhat, go take care of them worry about me later. Those I love come first, always have...always will. With the aid of a small ladder, they were able to get my mother out and strapped to a body board, then told me that they would have to use the jaws of life to get my grandmother out of the car.

At that point, I badgered my way through 3 EMTs ("Make a hole!"), and reached in, hugged my grandmother's neck, told her I loved, her and would be waiting with my mother for her until they got her out of the car and on the ambulance. After a couple minutes, the EMTs attending my mother tried again to get yours truly strapped down in a board, which I refused, not being in any pain at the time, clear headed, and felt good. For future reference, if you "put yourself aside" and amped up on adrenaline, someone can put a few bullets in you and you'll still be smiling. After a minute, the EMT talking to me made a weird guesture and I was, I thought, rudely but gently tackled by a few firefighters and forcibly strapped into that damn iron maiden body board. And it felt that way as soon as I was strapped in, I immediately hurt from head to toe.

My mother and I were tossed into the ambulance and we headed off to the hospital in Sanford, NC. Halfway there, we heard over the radio that upon pulling my grandmother out of the car, she tac'd and immediately went into cardiac arrest. My motehr started panicking, and I barked at the EMT to "Shut that fk'n thing off, what's wrong with you?!" My mother held my hand in a death grip and cried until we got to the hospital, she still does sometimes. My grandmother died on scene at the accident, the first of two fatalities.

My mother got a cast/brace for her ankle and a neckbrace. I was given xrays, mri's, ct scans, the works by the ER, with a lot of sidelong glances, whispers, weird looks from nurses, and nods from the EMTs. I didn't find out until the next day exactly what I had done in exiting the car and my actions afterward. It still surprises me a bit to this day, in all honesty...but then I haven't gotten to me quite yet. I was released befor emy mother as they did not find anything in any of the scans, but I did leave the ER with a healthy prescription of muscle relaxers and percocets, in addition what they shot me up with. I was outside having a smoke by the road when my ex arrived with my aunt and uncle who had picked her up from work. My aunt gave me yet another strange look and my uncle just looked at me, laughed, and shook his head before going in to see my mother.

That night was a very sober one, no one was able to eat when we got home. Mom and I stayed up late talking that night after my ex went to bed. The next day I will remember for the rest of my life. It took me at least 30 minutes to get out of bed, I was stiff as a brick, and I felt rolling pains through my stomach, popping and....a pulling sensation. I later equated it t being caught in a chain hoist that was tightening around you. I popped some pain meds, muscle relaxers and got up when they kicked in, and had my first day of many these last 4 years of not being able to eat. My parents, ex, aunt, uncle, and one of my cousin's had a family day at my uncle's house next door to talk about things, and discuss plans, it was then that I learned about my "batmaning" out of the car, and was pointedly told I was a dumbass for doing it, especially after what we found out later. I excused myself from the get together, stating I needed to sit and have a smoke, but in truth the earlier pain came back. Now, I am no stranger to pain, and have an abnormally high pain tolerance, but that was easily the worst pain I have ever been in.

Ten minutes later, my cousin's husband who is an LPN and former Gulf war era medic came up and told me I needed to go back to the hospital. I, of course, declined, saying if I didn't feel any better by Sunday I might. He stood up, grabbed a mirror, told me to look at myself and told me that if I was one of his patients, he would have called for the crash cart instead of talking. I have a picture taken at AT&T about a month after all this, where I still have a decent tan, but that day, looking in the mirror I was the palest I have ever been.

My ex came over after he walked off, and I told her that yes, I would go to the hospital. My cousin's husband may be full of shit with some things, but when it comes to trauma, he's pro. So we went back to the hospital, had the full run of scans again, this time the attendant consulted a specialist, Dr. Michael Gordon. Dr. Gordon immediately admitted me into ICU, had the nurses put so much crap in me that I passed out and only woke up twice for about 2 mins each time. Once to make sure my ex was still with me, and the second when the results came back.

Dr. Gordon had already told the both of them the full extent of what was going on, I was told enough of the basics to go "she has power of attorneeeeeee, ok...zzzzzzzzz" But I do distinctly remember both of them with rivers where most people have eyes. What I was told at the time was that there was some internal damage that he needed to look at, but that I should be ok. What I actually found out later, I had to steal the records, as dad and m ex didn't want to talk too much about it, was that I had: Internal trauma, lacerated mesentery (that's the sheath of muscles that hold your guts in), punctured kidney, my right side, rupturing appendix, multiple tears, and internal bruising. Essentially, everything from my sternum to pelvis, middle to right side was pulped, and I was losing a lot of blood.

I was in surgery for over 12 hours. At some point, as I have every surgery that I've had, I woke up. Dr. Gordon, to his credit, noticed right away that my eyes were open, looked over the curtain they put over my aired out self and simply said everything was fine, go back to sleep. I think I nodded, but I really doubt I did and passed back out. At some point, the blood loss caught up and and I died on that operating room table for approximately six minutes according to my records. I have memories of this...and it was a lot longer than six minutes.

I have always considered my self a faithful person, faith in myself, in others, in nature, in what most acknowledge as God, and what most call an afterlife. That faith does not come from any religion, but is very much an internal, personal thing. What happened that night seared it into me in a way that I am still realizing, as well as other changes that have come about since then. I remember no light at the end of the tunnel, I think that's a personal expectation, and I believe in the "Periphery", or the space between, from very early eschatology. There, I saw my grandmother, who did not speak, only smiled at me, but I could feel her love and pride in me. And my daughter, Kaelyn Lee Starr was there, though instead of a month old, she looked to be about five or six (She was born in 2002). We talked for a little while, I'll not relate what was said, but I have the idea that much more was said than I remember now.

The next after that I remember was walking up Sunday afternoon and tearing out that itchy, raw, and offensive tube that was up my nose and down my throat and passed back out. The tape I think a nurse took off later, I still have a little bit of an indent from that damn tube (lol). I was in the hospital for two weeks on a steady diet of percocet (after I badgered the nurses into taking me off morphine), pain killers, prednisone, phenyrgen, and IV bags. I remained on an all liquid diet for two months, which was how long I was supposed to be in ICU for, but why stop being a stubborn ass then, right? I left the hospital the day of my grandmother's funeral, was told the room would stay there for me, but I wanted to go home and process what happened, and my foggy memories of the early hours of April 20th.

Well, that's pretty much the end of that, but the end is never the end, merely a new beginning in beggar's clothes. I was confined in a wheelchair my entire time at the hospital and two weeks after that. I was told there was a likelihood that I might have had spinal injuries from the trauma, surgery, and spinal tap that was done. I said "Fk you, I'm walking", hobbled out of the wheelchair, used a bokken as a cane for a month or so and I've been walking since. I went to work about 4 months ahead of time, nailing the next training class at AT&T after my original finished.

My dad acted like a father for a few months, which was pretty great. My ex, who was having an affair at the time of our move to NC, now ask me why we moved, fell all over herself with apologies, and "almost lost you, blah blah blah" Well, you know she was full of shit, since she's my ex and wasn't born with that knee dime that most women have. She made it about a year before she started her affairs again, and I cranked out the best woman cheating, jealous quote, I think. "to be jealous, he's got to have something I want. If you are just friends, then he has nothing I want and need not worry. If you are having an affair with this guy, then he STILL has nothing I want, so I need not worry."

I still hurt everyday, but it's mostly manageable. I still have the appetite of a bird; that and walking has dropped me 4 inches of my waist, which I suppose is cool, though I have lost muscle mass, which is not cool. I do have a "post incisional hernia" as a result of the surgery where my muscle wall was weakened, have since 2008. Thanks to the best medical care and coverage in the known world, I haven't had sufficient insurance in the last 3 years or so to have it repaired. I almost did with my previous employer, but they dropped the ball, so to speak, and I never got my insurance card. My current employer, however, offers the same insurance, so here in a few months....

But...since the accident I have found myself far more patient, tolerant, understanding, and forgiving of a lot of things. Adultery, obviously, not being one of them. There is a constant that I share with most that have had "NDE's", but that's not what this is about. I have learned to appreciate each day as it comes, the people around me, and I have finally learned to take things in stride, find the humour in everyday life. It is something I have tried to share with others around me, which is lost on them sometimes, but other times...they get it clearly and I smile.

So there you have it, if you've bothered to read this far. The source of all my comments, posts, some songs, quotes, and such. Maybe, just maybe...you'll understand yours truly just a little bit more. If not, your choice.