After seeing The Hangover on Sunday afternoon, I went to my office to work for a few hours. That few hours ended up with me leaving for home at 10:30 PM.
As I sat at a red light, I looked up into my rear view mirror to see a pair of headlights barreling toward me.
I didn't have time to react (beyond tensing my body, a response I don't recommend) before the car attached to those headlights slammed into my car's rear. Even with my seatbelt on, my body whipsawed forward and back and my left knee hit the dashboard hard enough to knock one of the ashtray-like compartments off its track.
I won't bore you with the details, but the other driver was drunk out of his mind and did not speak English. My competency in Spanish is about on the par of a third-grader who is flunking the semester. I called 9-1-1 and requested a bilingual police officer at the scene . . . and a fire truck since the other driver's car was on fire.
The other driver kept trying to return to "his" car, a bit of a misnomer because it turned out he didn't actually own the car. Again, I won't bore you with the details. But I spent the next TWENTY minutes pulling him away from the merrily blazing Chevy Prism he didn't own.
The front end of his car was completely engulfed in flames by the time the fire department and the police got to the scene. And we had drawn a bit of a crowd, including my university's campus security, who were not amused to realize that the other driver--whose name was Pedro; he refused to give a last name--had no ID or insurance.
When Pedro saw the campus cops arrive, he turned to the firemen and told them in Spanish he was having chest pains. I had to translate for them. The firemen called for the paramedics who quickly determined there was no problem beyond the medical diagnosis of "drunk as a skunk."
It was well after midnight before the police let me leave. They gave Pedro a breathalyzer test and then arrested him for DWI.
I say all this to explain why I am just going to point to a terrific post on Nathan Bransford's blog for today. I'll be back tomorrow.
Nathan's guest blogger is Eric who talks about the book business from the point of view of a sales assistant at a major book publisher. Go here to read it.
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7 comments:
Oh goodness! Glad you're okay!
I hope you're okay. I was in a similar accident and had a real bad case of whiplash. (also tore my rotator cuff-big ouchie)
Rest, ice, ice, rest.
Feel better soon.
Gosh, hope you're fully recovered soon. Just the kind of **** you don't need.
Thanks to all of you for the kind words.
I'm focussing on how fortunate I was to walk away from an accident with a drunk driver. There are many who do not.
So true, Maya. My father's younger brother was killed when he was 29 - he was riding a motorbike and the drunk driver had a truck. Head-on collision.
I hope your knee isn't too bad, and I'm glad you're safe. And that the other driver is hopefully going to be prevented from harming anyone else.
I hope you're well. I thought about you today as I checked my rearview mirror. Getting from one place to another safely is something we shouldn't take for granted.
Marian and Sharon: Thanks for the kind words.
I tried medication for the knee for a week. Didn't help so now I'm facing a month of PT. Grrrr. I have to get up an hour early to get to the therapist before I go to work.
When I'm losing sleep, it's harder to focus on my blessings.
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