Warning - this is long! I just wanted to get it written down for posterity's sake.
I remember what we were wearing like it was yesterday. I had on jeans, a blue plaid shirt, brown boots, and a new bra from Victoria's Secret that I was wearing for the first time. He had on jeans, a red/yellow/blue plaid shirt from the Gap, worker boots, and his purple Darlington letterman's jacket. We were on our way to school in our Chevy Blazer - one of those that was red on the bottom and faded to white on the top. I still remember that suv like it was yesterday, too. It was the one in which we almost died. It was the scene of the worst day of my mother's life...
It was February of 1994. My brother B was a senior in high school (17) and I was a sophomore (15). He drove us to school every day my freshman and sophomore year. We went to a private school so it was on the other side of town from where we lived - but we lived in a small town so it was only about 15 miles or so. That morning was like any other, I suppose. I can't actually remember anything about getting up and getting ready that day. The first thing I remember is that we were in the car on our way to school and my brother started complaining that his stomach hurt. This was unusual because he never complained. He was a 250 lb football player who caused pain on the field but never seemed to feel it. Anyway, that morning he complained. We stopped at a gas station so that he could get some advil or tylenol or something - that part I don't remember - but I do remember saying that I could drive us the rest of the way to school because at 15 with a learner's permit I would jump at the chance to get behind the wheel! He said he was fine, though, and we continued on to school.
The next thing I remember is that we were just a few miles from school and we were going over a bridge and the car kinda bumped up against the curb. I gave B a hard time about his driving and reached over to kinda punch him in the arm. When I looked over at him, though, he was passed out. At the wheel. He was hunched over to the side and his foot seemed to be lodged down on the accelerator because we were still going full speed. I know that I immediately grabbed the wheel to try to keep us on the road. "B! Wake up!" I yelled while I was hitting him! He didn't move. I freaked out. I thought he was dead. Honestly, truly, 100% that is what went through my head. I don't remember thinking "we're going to crash" or "I could die". I remember thinking my brother had just died right there beside me. Anyway, we were still going fast and I had one hand on the wheel and tried to reach down to pull his foot off the accelerator. I couldn't reach and he had on those heavy size 13 work books so I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached down to pull his pants leg to get his foot to raise up. Apparently in trying to do all of these things I must have pulled on the steering wheel because the car spun around and I vividly remember the feeling of being pulled out of the car. I don't remember anything visually from that experience - maybe I had my eyes closed or maybe I've suppressed that memory, who knows - but I do remember that feeling. I KNEW at that moment that I was being thrown from the car. And then I landed. I remember the landing. I landed on the right side of my body and looked down to see my femur (you know, the biggest bone in your body?) poking through my jeans. It wasn't actually poking all the way through, but it was bulging out and I knew without a doubt I had just broken my leg. It must have hurt - it had to - but I don't remember pain at that moment. I remember still thinking my brother was dead and wondering what the hell had just happened.
People were on the scene immediately. We were almost to school so I later found out that other parents and students had witnessed what happened. They saw the car go out of control. They saw it spin around. They saw me get thrown from the car and land in a ditch. They saw the car flip. They saw it land up the hill from where I was in the ditch. In the days and weeks following the accident I heard various accounts of what people saw and what happened, but I don't think I was in a state of mind to really take it all in so there are still some things I don't know.
Anyway, back to me, in the ditch, with my femur poking out of my leg. People were around me immediately telling me that help was on the way. They asked me questions but all I remember is that I kept saying "My brother. He is in the car! Where is he? Is he dead?" I was told that he was in the car and people were with him. I was told that he was awake and talking and okay. I didn't believe them. I was 15 and lying in a ditch with my leg broken in half. There was no way they were going to break the news to me there that my brother was dead. "Prove it!" I said. "What is his name? How old is he?What did he tell you?" I asked several questions and got several answers that somehow persuaded me to believe that he was alive and I remember simultaneously feeling a huge sigh of relief and then a flood of pain. "My leg! It hurts!" I yelled.
I remember my leg getting set. I think I was still on the ground at that point. I remember being put into the ambulance and the paramedic cut right through my new bra so that he could hook me up to some monitors. I remember telling him he had just cut through my new bra! Ha! There were two hospitals in my hometown and I tried to convince them to take me to Redmond because that's the one my mother liked better (she was about to take a job there - being an RN herself). They took me to Floyd Hospital anyway - which also happens to be where I was born. I vaguely remember the ambulance ride. Then I remember being in the ER and several of the nurses/doctors knew my mother and would come in to tell me she was on her way. I remember wanting pain medicine but I couldn't have any until they had done a CAT scan. I remember a lot of people and tests but not really in what order everything happened. Mainly I remember being in so much pain that I finally shut my eyes and prayed I could fall asleep. I don't know if I did actually fall asleep or not but the next thing I remember is opening my eyes and seeing my brother standing beside me with nothing more than a bandage on his forehead. "B! I'm so sorry!" I immediately tried to explain to him how I tried to grab the wheel and I tried to get his foot off the accelerator and..." and he was saying "I'm sorry!' at the same time. He was alive. Finally I had real proof!
I later found out that our car landed upside down at the top of the ditch and since B was still wearing his seatbelt he was hanging upside down inside. He hit his forehead on the steering wheel - which is why he had the bandage - and basically "woke up" as they were cutting the car apart with the "jaws of life". He said they were trying to get him out and wanted to cut his letterman's jacket and he quickly said "no!" and pulled it off himself! Ha! Apparently he had better luck with his favorite jacket than I did with my pretty new bra. Anyway, they ran a barrage of tests on him that day in the hospital to try to figure out what had happened to him. He had CAT scans, some sort of glucose tests, and a number of other things. They never figured out what it was. Some people (not the doctors) thought he had fallen asleep. I can assure you that with the amount of screaming and punching I was doing to him there was no way he was asleep. He was passed out. I don't know why. We'll never know. The doctors decided it must have been some sort of virus that made his stomach hurt that morning and that somehow caused him to pass out. I know that it was a while after that before I could ride with him in the car and not stare at him the entire time he was driving waiting to see if he was going to pass out. It's been 16 years, though, and hasn't happened again. At some point I stopped staring at him.
As for me, I had broken my femur in half, partially torn my ACL, and sprained my ankle - all on the right side of my body. I remember thinking "okay, throw a cast on it and let me out of here!" My mother broke the news to me that I would have to stay in the hospital overnight. She didn't tell me that it would be 5 nights! I ended up having surgery to place a metal rod in my femur and pins in my hip and knee. No cast. Pretty crazy, huh? I remember that Ron Gant, who played for the Atlanta Braves at the time, was in a motorcycle accident around the same time as our accident and he broke at least one of the bones in his lower leg and also had a metal rod put in it. Somehow this made my surgery seem a little cooler at the time!
Many, many people came to visit me that week in the hospital. Initially there was a mixup because after I was released from the emergency room at Floyd Hospital my mother had me transferred to Redmond to have the surgery there (see, I told you she liked that one better!). Some of my best friends heard about the accident and showed up at Floyd, only to be told I had been released. They thought I was safely at home. Only later did they realize I was still in another hospital and finally caught up with me there.
I was out of school at home for a few weeks doing physical therapy and recovering. The 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer were on tv and I watched many of the sports on my small tv in my bedroom while my leg was hooked to a machine for therapy. I went back to school on crutches for several weeks and at first it was like I was a bit of a folk hero or something. Everyone had heard the story. Many people claimed to have seen me thrown from the car. I'm sure that the stories had grown more extravagant over time. Oh, and then there were the oh-so-helpful people who offered up what THEY would have done in that situation. They told me how I should have thrown the car into neutral. I should have taken the key out. Many things that they - in their infinite wisdom of how to be a 15 year old who thinks her brother is dead at the wheel and is freaking out because of course this has never happened before - might have done differently. Done better. I felt some guilt about it for a while. I felt like somehow I could have prevented the whole accident if I had known what to do. Later I let go of that, though. I realized that there was no way I could have been expected to handle that situation any better. We were alive. A scratched forehead and a broken leg. We were alive. That's a success.
My friends were amazing during the time I was recovering. They would come to me a lot so that I didn't have to go anywhere. And when I did go somewhere they were helping me along. We used to hang out at one of our guy friends' house a lot. We hung out in the basement and you could either walk downstairs or walk around to the back of their house to get there. I remember the guys carrying me down the hill so that I could go into the basement and hang out with them. I also remember a really funny story of how we were in another guy friend's Tahoe and we went mudding. (Yes, I did grow up in the country!) We were out in a field riding around in the mud and his truck got stuck! I had my crutches with me and we had to get out of the car and walk through the mud away from the truck so that they could try to get it out. My friends helped carry me so that I could get through the mud - but man was I not happy! It sure is a fond memory now, though. :)
I had the pins taken out of my knee several months later, which happened to be right before my 16th birthday. I was sooo anxious to go get my driver's license that my mother helped me stash my crutches from that surgery into the trunk of the car and I limped into the DMV with a bandage around my knee. In hindsight I can't believe my mother let me do that - but she always was the best mother in the world! I passed my test and got my license that day. I had the rod taken out the following year and I still have it today as a souvenir. I was able to make a full recovery and have even run a few marathons since then. It's truly amazing.
Anyway, I've told that story probably a couple dozen times before but I've never written it all down. I'm not sure what made me think of it recently but now that I'm a mother I think I can appreciate even more how truly terrifying it must have been for my mother to get the call that her children had been in an accident. I remember one time she told me that she got the call that her child had been in an accident (at least that's what she thought they said) and she said "which one?" and the voice on the phone said "both of them." Can you imagine? All I know is that someone must have been watching over us that day. We were on a highway with many other cars around and yet somehow we managed not to hit any of them. When the car first hit that curb on the bridge we could have hit harder and gone over the edge. When the car spun around and I was thrown out I could have landed on the road. I could have landed on my head. I could have been run over by another car. I could have gone through the windshield or could have been bouncing around inside the car while it flipped. Somehow the door flew open and I was thrown out through it and I landed in a ditch on my side. Somehow we ended up with a scratch on a forehead and a broken leg. It wasn't our time to die and I am thankful for that. My mother and father are thankful for that. And now, our spouses and children are thankful for that.
We had some family photos taken recently to give to our parents. Here I am with my husband and son (left) and my brother and his wife and daughter (right). We're thankful that the worst day in my mother's life actually turned out not to be that bad after all.
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