I got into a car accident last Thursday! I had run to the store after work to get some stuff for the kids, and I was coming home around 5:00. Traffic was horrible. I was going west on 19, approaching the intersection at Schaumburg road. It was a green light, but everyone was breaking because of traffic. I slowed down and stopped behind a car, towards the intersection. Just as I was thinking "ok I stopped in time, and I'm in the intersection but it's still a green light so I'm ok" everything went *CRASH!!!!!* The person behind me must not have been watching and slammed, into me, causing me to hit the car in from of me. All together, there were five cars in the accident. None of them were moving except the one who hit me. I don’t know how fast he was going, but he caused me to hit the car in front of me, and that car to hit another car, and that car to hit another car! I looked up to see my airbags had gone off and smoke was coming out of them. I began to freak out thinking "what just happened?!?" I looked down and my left hand was dripping blood, and I freaked out more!!! I had pain in my hands and right arm and was sure I broke a bone. I began breathing heavily. I couldn't move my arms. "Help!!" I called, "Help!!!!" I saw the cross hanging from my rearview mirror; KLOVE was playing on the radio. I asked God for help. A man came up to my window and asked if I needed an ambulance. I said yes. He saw my hand bleeding, and called for help. I then asked if he would call my family, and was able to give him my home number. Meanwhile, a lady saw I was bleeding and have me her sweater. Minutes later, a woman came up to the other side of my car, asking if I was ok. She opened the door, saw my distress and began comforting me. Another woman sat next to me, quietly speaking Spanish. "Are you praying?" I asked. "I don't speak English," she replied. "Dios?" I said (God in Spanish). "Yes, yes, God is with you. Jesus loves you," she said. Finally, some sort of emergency worker came and began asking me questions. It was the first of at least 20 times I would answer: what is my name, birth date, address, phone #, what happened, what hurts, etc. etc. He assured me help was on its way, but that I needed to calm down because I was hyperventilating. My entire body was tingling as I breathed hard and cried, and my hands felt frozen. More workers came and told me to slow my breathing. At last, an ambulance arrived. The paramedics came and looked me over. When they tried to move my arms, I cried out “they’re broken!!” They gave me some gauze to stop the bleeding, and put a neck brace on me just in case. Then they put braces on my arms. They helped me onto a stretcher. Meanwhile, blood had soaked my khakis, so they covered me with a blanket. They brought me into an ambulance and I began calming down. My mom had arrived on the scene and they let her see me, as long as she stayed calm. Then we drove to the hospital. They took my pulse and blood pressure. At the hospital, all the rooms were full and I had to wait in the hallway. More people came to question me. At last, they gave me some pain medication, which my nurse Terry helped me take and fed me crackers so it wouldn’t upset my stomach. (I still couldn’t move my hands). They took me to get x-rayed. I hate x-rays because they make you move around the parts of your body that could be broken which HURTS. My Dad arrived at the hospital. Finally, they told us nothing was broken and I began to move my fingers. The nurse came to clean my hand. It was cut between my pinky and ring finger. No one could figure out what I cut it on, but it is pretty deep and in a bad spot. A doctor came and shot my hand up to numb it, then sewed it up with 12 stitches. Finally, I could go home. I was exhausted. I am glad I’m ok, and that it wasn’t worse. I am glad to be alive! But cars (and life in general) is so scary in the way it can change in an instant!!! God was with me the whole time though!
Update: My car is indeed totaled, and I am working on getting insurance money to buy a new one. God is totally providing me with transportation in the meantime. My hand is healing nicely and the pain is so much better now!!! I went back to work Monday.
