Car accidents. I've always been afraid of them....but hadn't had one since I was like 20. My very first accident was horrible. I was riding in a car with a friend. I was sleeping and she was driving. We were probably a mile from her house when we wrecked. She fell asleep and veered off the road. She popped her eyes open, tried to get the car under control, but obviously didn't. The next thing I know, we went off the side of the road, hit a fence and started flipping. I remember something hitting my head, then everything was just black. I couldn't hear anything, but I could feel myself flipping around even though I couldn't feel pain. Finally, after what seemed like a few minutes, we stopped moving. The whole accident was probably 20 seconds, but it was in slow motion for me. The next think I know, I heard my friend saying my name. It took a second for me to be able to respond to her. We crawled out of the vehicle....on the side that the door would open on and searched to find our way back to the road. It was late, or I guess early in the morning, pitch black on a road with no lights. We'd wrecked into a field and I had no idea where we were because I'd been sleeping just before we crashed. We found a barb wire fence that we had to climb over to get to the road. Just after we found the road, a man came to investigate the noise he heard, and called the police for us. We were fine, miraculously. We had some serious bumps and bruises, I could count 5 large bumps on my head, my hand was cut and bleeding, and I had some nasty bruises the size of grapefruits on each of my thighs (likely from the air bag). Of course some severe whiplash that took a while to heal as well. But for the most part, both of us were fine. See, I was never a big seat belt person. I knew that they could save your life in an accident, but I was young and invincible....never thought I could die. My friend was the same way....neither of us wore our seat belts on the way to our friends house that evening. On the way home, it was late, and I was soooo tired. I decided to put my seat belt on so that I could lean my head against it, sort of like a pillow. When my friend saw me put mine on, she put hers on and said, "I guess I'll wear mine too." I keep thinking there must have been some divine intervention there. If we weren't wearing our seat belts, we would have been thrown from the vehicle, and likely be dead. The cop that showed up to the scene said that we hit the fence head on, causing us to flip, end over end 3 times. The car was incredible to look at....and even more incredible that we walked away from it. My hair was stuck in "oh shit" handle above the door, that section of the car was crunched down.....so I knew what hit my head on one of our first flips.
Recently, my children and I were driving on Main Street in Lehi. We came to an abrupt stop at a light when the person in front of me slammed on their breaks. We were able to stop fine, though quickly....then the sound that gives me nightmares happened. The squeal of tires. I could hear it, but couldn't see where it was coming from. I had that "OH NO" feeling just before the back of my van was slammed into. Immediately my kids were crying. My poor baby screamed louder than I've ever heard him scream. I could see Caile out of the corner of my eye. She had that freaked out look on her face. I immediately pulled my car to the side of the road, and could see the truck behind me follow me over. I looked back to make sure Peyton was okay. He was crying. He was the closest to the back, so he got most of the impact. He said that he heard his neck pop. But he felt OK. A poor 19 year old kid gets out of his truck to see if we're OK. I've got 3 kids in the back crying and I tell him to call for help. Of course, then it's my turn to panic a little. We were all OK, but had some whiplash. I just don't think there can be a car accident without a little pain, and being scared to death! This was not my worst car accident, but this one had my kids involved! I am a little bit scared to drive. I'm scared every time I have to stop quickly that someone is going to slam into the back of me. I am just thankful that again, everyone was OK. Even though we have a ruined van, my family is OK. We are truly blessed.
Our car had $5000 of damage to the back end. Thank goodness for seat belts and insurance!! I'll post some pictures if I can get them off of my husbands phone.....
