2 hours after 
1 day
4 days
8 days| 2 hours after |
1 day |
4 days |
8 days |
Poor, poor lil red. Alas she served me well for 14 years. Notice the sympathetic "eye" that matches mine |
Hmmh, didn't have bowed out body before! (The right rear looks even worse) |
And now
premiering in the NOT MADE FOR TV drama...Eye Half Shut
starring Steven! |
The paint of
the dog that bit me.  |
Thursday, August 19, 1999. 8:30 AM. Travelling North on San Thomas Expressway at cross street Monroe, in heavy traffic. Traffic was speeding up from a low of 35 miles per hour (limit is 45) at the light. Just as I enter the light I look to my right to see mucho cars merging into the right most lane. One is merging wide, almost into my lane - that's strange. I'm one over from there. I look ahead... Hmmh, that's REALLY ODD the gold Honda ahead of me is apparently suddenly going much slower than I am... but I don't remember seeing any tail lights (or hearing any screeching).
The foot mashes to the brakes hard. I check the left and the right - no room cars on either side. Dang... mash REALLY HARD. Wheels lock, 15 feet of straight skid. Car slowed from about 40 down to about 20. I brace for impact. BAM. My glasses came off my face and have landed on my left calf completely unharmed. I reach down with my left hand to retrieve my glasses and glance out over the hood. Good news: the hood seems OK, car is still running.
Then this thought enters my mind: "Uh-oh - I wonder if the guy behind me is going to stop... Less than 2 seconds from the first BAM comes the second KA-BAMMM. The force of the second imact hurls my body back into my seat breaking my seatback. It now sits at "semi reclined position". The seat manages to impart enough forward momentum that I now - thanks to the slack from picking up my glasses - slam my left eyebrow on the steering wheel. OUCH. [I later discovered two bruises on my chest, too]. The contents of my "trunk" are strewn about. The driver door doesn't open (wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere since the brow was smarting and I was kind of dazed and confused). Hmmh, next observation: the hood now has this "wrinkled WAVE thing going on". NOT groovy.
The other two drivers (the one in front and the one behind) are out of their cars now, checking on me. I'm smarting. They seem OK - thank God for that! I keep checking for blood - but all I find is a rapidly swelling brow and my neck and shoulders are sore. Thank God for that, too - could have been worse.
The police are there in minutes and ask us to pull off the road. I discover that there are 3 cars in a wreck ahead of me - no serious damage to any of them. The guy in front of me apparently narrowly missed hitting the car ahead of him. Don't I wish I could have done that! The gold Honda has some scratches on the bumper - no serious bending going on. After a time, I muster the courage to climb out of the car.
Then I spend the next 15 minutes calling (using the cell phone of the guy behind me) to locate my wife. "I've been in an accident. Please bring some ice. Oh, and I'm not dead." or something like that anyway.
All of the drivers ahead of us drive off into the sunset. But the red Honda (mine) and the blue Corolla are both bleeding green coolant. Just as the tow trucks finish loading red and blue on their flatbeds, KAPOW. A woman in a small car CREAMS a white Range Rover. The Range Rover looks fine, the woman, with the airbag in her face is obviously dazed. The policeman shakes his head in dismay...
The urgent care doctor inspects my brow and retina. No damage to the eye, no apparent serious injury. It will look a lot worse by tomorrow she warns me. But THANK GOD I'm going to be all right. Slowly through the rest of the day the eye gets more and more colorful. The neck and shoulders both make their complaints known.
It was on Friday and Saturday that I noticed how painful the neck and shoulders are. OWWW. Saturday morning is interesting. Can't roll out of bed to the right - it smarts, can't roll out of bed to the left, that smarts, too. Can't sit straight up 'cause the neck muscles are SCREAMING...
To make a long story longer... 10 days go by. The eye is looking almost normal, and the soreness his dissipating... but I sneeze. OWWWWWWWW. The chest, neck and shoulder pain come roaring back and the fingers in the right hand get numb. Eventually normal feeling returns.
Almost three weeks since the accident, the shoulder, neck, back and chest continue to ache - sometimes a little, sometimes quite a bit more. But at least the occasional sneeze doesn't send me to the floor in agony.
-Steven
