On January 24th, a little over three weeks ago, my kids and I were involved in a horrible car accident. You may have to forgive me on some of the details, as I don't remember the whole thing, but we've been piecing things together since the crash and have a semi-clear view of what happened.
My husband had gone to church that morning, he had gone early because he was supposed to lead worship, so the kids and I were going to follow behind later so we weren't in the way during his practice. I had spent the morning getting the kids ready, and I don't remember a ton about that, I remember talking to the boys about them getting their allowance when we got home because it was Sunday (the day they normally get it). I got the boys into our truck, which we had just gotten three weeks earlier, and I remember that for once the boys didn't argue about who sat where. The truck had an extended cab, so there were seats in the back for the boys, but no one liked to sit in the middle because it didn't have a shoulder belt, just a lap belt... and honestly I didn't like that either. So if there was room, one of the boys would sit in the front passenger seat with their booster seat, because we all felt it was safer since it had a shoulder belt. On that morning, Gabriel had sat in the front in his booster seat, Eli was behind him in his booster, and Jared was behind me in his toddler car seat.
I got on the road by our house, and I remember being thankful that the roads were clear. One of my biggest fears in life is getting in a car accident with my children, either flipping a car, or getting side swiped, so I feel like I'm always more then cautious when my kids are in the car.
I got on HWY 33 which is the main road we take to get in to town where church is at, and I remember when I first got on the road, thinking that it was clear, and again being relieved. HWY 33 is not my favorite road, and hasn't been since we moved in. It's very open and hilly, so the wind goes straight over it and it can make a normal snow day a horrible driving snow day in minutes because it will ice everything up. We see lots of people in the ditch on this road when the weather gets bad, and it's always made me uneasy. So we got on the road, and from what I remember, the road was clear. I remember it being blustery and gray out.
The other thing about HWY 33 is it's long, and I've lived here for 8 months and there are times I still don't know where I am on the road because things look the same, and sometimes you can be on the road for 2 minutes and think you've gone 10 miles, and other times you can go 10 miles and think you've gone 2. All this to say, when the accident happened, I had absolutely no idea where I was at.
I was driving, and there started to be snow in the left lane. I was in the right lane that was clear, but I started to slow down anyway. Everyone was going the same speed, but suddenly I noticed that there was a really slow vehicle up ahead. The other cars that were in front of me decided to pass, but I'm not a big fan of passing when the left lane has even minimal snow on it. So (and this is where things get foggy) I remember taking my foot off of the gas... and why the truck decided to start fish tailing, I don't know. It could have been the fact of me taking the foot off of the gas... I don't think I hit the brake, but maybe I slightly did... my tire could have caught a small patch of snow... I don't really know. I know whatever it was that made it start to go wasn't anything big or noticeable because it was a slight movement at first and then it really took off when it caught more of the snow in the left lane.
The state trooper said that I likely lost control on the bridge going over White Pine River and fish tailed it from there until we ended up in the ditch... he told me this in the hospital and I was like 'I was by a river?'
So, we fish tailed. Back and forth across the road, and it felt like forever. I'm usually pretty good about controlling cars in bad situations... my dad used to tell me 'it's good to lose control once or twice when you're going slow, so you know how to control the car if something were to happen when it's going fast' and living on dirt country roads growing up that would ice up like no ones business in the spring made you figure out how to handle a car from the get go. But a truck? I hadn't driven a truck except one or two times in the summer before buying this one, and keep in mind, we had only had it three weeks. So I remember while trying to keep it on the road that I didn't know how to get out of this fish tail with a rear wheel drive truck.. and I remember feeling like we were on an ice skating rink as we slid, which likely means that there was black ice on the bridge/road.
The last fish tail put us facing the opposite direction and heading right for the ditch, which later I found out, also sent us straight towards the river.
As we entered the ditch, I remember seeing two telephones flash right in front of the windshield, and for a split second I was so thankful we hadn't hit them. In the short seconds before we flipped (or maybe one second?) this is the only part I remember very clearly. I remember knowing that we might flip or at the very least hit something, in my mind I could hear my mother scream from when we had ditched the car when I was younger, and ironically she screamed the word 'relax!' (odd fact: those who are relaxed when they get into a car accident are less likely to get hurt then those who are tense... hence her choice of words). I remember thinking 'Do I tell my children to relax? That I love them?' and in the split second, and I'm gonna say it was God, I heard clear as day, 'no... you're all going to be alright...' and I remember my entire body relaxing, I had been holding on the wheel so tightly, and this indescribable, undeniable peace flooded my body, and in those short seconds, my arms completely relaxed and my entire body...and then we rolled.
No one knows how many times we rolled. It was down hill, and I can't tell you any part of the roll as I don't remember it at all. The state trooper and paramedics said it was a multiple rollover... after seeing the truck, I would think only once because one side of the truck wasn't smashed... but it sure seemed like it was more then one, so no one knows.
The truck landed on the roof, and my kids were all screaming, and I remember just moaning over and over again. I kept trying to say it was ok, at the same time asking if they were hurt over and over again. Gabriel let his seatbelt go immediately and went to check on Jared since he was the only one who couldn't answer me, and I was never more thankful that he had sat up front where there was a shoulder belt to keep him safe. There was snow in the truck by my head, and I realized my side window was smashed out, so I stuck my arm out the window and tried flailing it around, which probably wasn't much more then minimal movement, and screaming for someone to come help us. I kept saying 'Help me! I have kids in the car!' over and over.
I remember trying to grab my purse and look for my phone to call 911, but I couldn't find the phone as everything had gotten completely thrown around. Gabriel offered to try to get help, and managed to crawl out my window past me, and I told Eli to follow him as he had also gotten himself free. I was going to tell them to stand outside the truck and wave their arms, I knew I was stuck and I was going to need help. Someone, from somewhere, had stopped, and came running down to help us. I remember it was a guy and a lady, her name was Angie. I never saw their faces though, my head had been pinned between the headrest and the roof sideways faced away from the window, and I could no longer move it more then an inch back and forth. Looking back on those first few minutes in the truck, I think the fact that I was wearing a big fluffy coat did not work in my favor, because it had let me slip down further onto my head the more I move.
Angie and this guy managed to get Jared out from a tiny little window that was smashed behind me, and at this point I noticed that I was bleeding from my head and it was dripping to the roof. The boys all refused to leave my side even after the couple had told them to go sit in their car to warm up, but they were too scared for their Mama and kept saying no. I remember Angie came to tell me how sweet the boys were and how good they were being, and that they wouldn't leave, and I tried to call out 'Mama is ok, boys, go sit in the car to be warm please, I'll be ok!' and only then did they go with the guy to sit in the car, and Angie stayed with me.
I asked Angie to call my husband, which they did, and he left before church ever started and raced down to come be with us. In that time, the fire department and paramedics showed up, and then started the process of getting me out of the truck. By this time, my clavicle, where the seat belt was, had sharp pain, and my head was trapped sideways and I could feel myself slipping further onto it which made my neck and head hurt all the more, so I kept trying to push myself up, but the pain in my arm prevented it, and I also remember so much snow in the car that my hands were resting against it and getting so cold and numb. My leg was jammed in between the gear shaft and the steering wheel, and my whole hips hurt from the seat belt. I had no idea why I had blood coming from my head, but I remember saying something once that 'well it's not a whole lot, so it can't be that bad, right?'
The fire department/paramedics were able to release the seatbelt and roll me in to the truck so that I didn't land any further on my head or twist my neck any further. When the released me, I remember my hips pinching and hurting so bad and I couldn't move for a minute. I had fallen further into the truck, instead of toward the window opening that they needed to get me out of, so I laid on the roof of the truck until I could move my legs and then positioned myself close enough to the window where they could reach me. The didn't want me to move as much as possible, so once I got close enough to the window, the pulled me out the rest of the way onto a stretcher. I had been stuck in the truck for about 30 minutes upside down (is what I was told).
I remember being pulled out of the truck, and thinking the sky was so bright. I couldn't turn my head, it hurt too bad, and they kept telling me to lie still. I never got to look at the truck, or where we were, or even at my kids. All I could see was if someone was standing above me. I remember blinking a ton, and feeling like my eye was goopy with blood... or makeup? I have no idea... whether it was blood or not, I'm not sure. My kids have repeatedly told me I had blood all over my face, which just makes me so sad that the poor kiddos had to see me that way. They put the neck brace on after removing my scarf, and I was shaking from head to toe from the cold, my hands worst of all.
They carried me out of the ditch, which took a few guys, and they kept saying 'go slow, it's slippery... this snow is deep, let's take our time so we don't rock her...', and for a split second I remember seeing someone passing in front of my view and they were holding Jared, I recognized his bright blue jacket. I asked my husband later if that had been him, but he said it wasn't.
Apparently there had been two ambulances, Gabriel was in one because he had a small cut on his hand, but they ended up patching him up and then they put the three boys in my ambulance. I guess they had seat belts that they could hook up to the bench, so I had one child at my head, one by my feet, and one to my left. I had no idea who was who, as I couldn't turn my head, and my eyes were too goopy to make out clear which boys was which. My husband got to sit in the rig for a minute, I remember he reached out and held my hand, and honestly I thought he was there the whole time by my feet, but it turned out that they asked him to drive behind in the car. He had to go back and crawl into the truck to retrieve my purse, and he said he had a hard time getting through the window and into the truck because of how much the roof was pushed in. When he held my hand for that short time, I remember just wanting to cry and cry because I was so scared, all while feeling so bad for the kids, but I kept telling myself I wasn't allowed to cry because I didn't want to scare the boys even more then they already were.
We started to drive, I was packed with warm blankets as I was still shaking from the cold, and the paramedic started to assess what was wrong. My clothes had to be cut off, which made me colder, but I understood that they needed to make sure I was ok, and since I didn't know if I was ok or not, I just said 'do what you need to do.' My clavicle hurt, but not so bad that I thought it was broken, and I could still move my arm, my hips hurt, my neck and head hurt, so very, very cold... An IV was attempted, twice, but to no avail. They put the sirens on when we went down the hill in Duluth.
I didn't know who was sitting at my left, but it was the only kid that I could reach. My clavicle hurt, but I was determined to make my kids feel better, even if just for a moment. I reached my arm out from under the blanket, and reached out for them. At first I just felt his leg, and then I felt a tiny hand slip into mine... so gently, it was like he was just being extra careful not to hurt me anymore then I already was. I held his hand, found out through mumbled words that it was Eli who I was touching, and reassure them that I was going to be fine. I couldn't hold his hand for long, though I tried. My shoulder was hurting, and I was so cold. Cold was the last of everything I kept thinking of... I knew I was cold, and that I was shaking, but I just didn't think more about it than that.
When we got to the hospital, they wheeled me down to Trauma 1 (I remember that much!). I realized at this point that my husband actually was not in the ambulance, and the paramedic had to carry Jared while he rolled me in to the hospital. Once in the room, I could hear them tell the boys to sit down, and I heard them ask Gabriel to hold Jared in his lap so that they could help me. I just remember thinking over and over again 'but they're just too young for this! They shouldn't be having to take care of each other right now, I'm supposed to be able to take care of them! They shouldn't have to see me like this!'
The hospital was a whirl. I was still shaking, and I quickly had hot lamps put on me, and multiple hot blankets. The lamps were so hot, I remember they dried up the tears and blood on my face within seconds and made my face feel crusty. Only then did I realize that, maybe, just maybe, my body was too cold. Maybe I really was shaking too much. And slowly I realized I had been hanging upside down in the freezing weather for 30 minutes with parts of me pressed against snow and no heat, blood rushing to my head... laid on the cold board that laid in the snow when they got me out of the truck for 5 minutes... and had no clothes left to keep me warm...
I got asked if I was pregnant... I made some stupid joke that if I was, this was going to be the worse way possible to find out. Someone came to clean up my head, which was just a few minor glass cuts, but that had bled profusely due to all of my blood rushing to my head while I was hanging in the truck. And IV was attempted 4 more times, but I was so cold and my veins were virtually non existent, and I naturally have bad veins, that they failed time and time again. They wrapped my arms in warm blankets to get more blood in the veins, to try again after awhile. A State Trooper was there, asking my questions while they buzzed around me. I have no idea what they all did, there was a lot of them... someone showed up saying they were a social worker and were going to take my kids to a waiting room for kids, which I said yes too.
My husband showed up shortly after, and he came in. I don't remember much, besides telling him to go be with the kids because they needed someone they knew. Not that I didn't want him to be with me, of course I did, but I needed the kids to be ok... I needed the kids to have someone there that they knew that could say everything was going to be ok.
I got wheeled down to the CT Scan and X-Ray, and on the way, we passed a room that obviously had someone in it that had just gotten the news that a loved one passed away. A woman was hysterically sobbing and saying a few words about how they had done all they could... and I about lost it. I never tried so hard to not sob in my whole life. If someone had been with me that I had known, I don't think I could have held it in. But I was alone, only able to look at the ceiling as I was wheeled around... All I could think of is my kids, how that could be me right now sobbing over my kids, or my kids sobbing over me, and how close we had just come to being in this poor woman's shoes.
CT and X-Rays followed, the sobbing of the lady haunted me. I was wheeled back to the 'room' and had finally been sat up enough to slightly look around. Josh came to see me again.. I asked about the kids. He made sure I was ok, and gave me my phone that had been found somewhere, and I sent him back to the kids while we all waited for the results. People were texting me who had heard of the accident, but I only bothered replying back to my sister who had been at church that morning. It hurt to hold my arms up text, and I couldn't look down, and I could barely talk with the neck brace on, so I let her know I was ok and sort of left it at that.
The doctor came in, said nothing was broken, and I had warmed back up, and I could go, was told I had bruising to my hips and clavicle, and that my neck was 'sprained' or as we'd like to say 'whiplash,' and that the best thing to do was to go home and rest and take pain meds.
I got to wear lovely paper like scrubs home since I had no clothes left. And I tried to take a picture to show my husband who was with the kids as he was asking what I was going to wear and if I was going to be warm enough. He gave me his jacket to wear, as mine was also cut off, so I would have something for the way home.
I ended up returning to the ER a few days later, for in the following days, I started to slur my speech, not be able to speak at all at times in coherent sentences, and would either sleep all day long, not be able to sleep at all, my memory was fuzzy or forgetful, and ended up getting dizzy and nauseas and throwing up. Turns out I had a moderate concussion. My husband kept saying like I looked like I hit my head in one place, but I never remember hitting my head, but the concussion could have just been from the sheer force of all the flipping of the truck, or from hitting my head. Again, I was told to rest.
Since the accident? Well, we're 3.5 weeks out. My hips occasionally hurt, and I feel like I have a little lump of soft tissue in my clavicle that is sore at times. My spine is jacked up. I had recently had x-rays before the accident of my neck at a chiropractor, so after the accident we took more and having the recent films to compare too, we could easily see the difference of what the accident did, which I would be horrible at trying to describe details on here. In all, unfortunately it means I have headaches/migraines every single day, and if I turn my head wrong I get dizzy. It's hard to lift things that are heavy without getting instant headaches (or more intense headaches). It also has affected my sleep, and I wake up multiple times a night from pain in some place in my back from the accident. It hurt like all heck to wear a bra for a full two weeks after (TMI, I know). My kids spines are also a little jacked up as they also had x-rays after, but they won't need as much work to get everything straightened out, and it doesn't effect them as much since they are young. So that is how things are physically.
Emotionally... well, it's been a challenge. The boys haven't wanted to talk about it with hardly anyone. Eli got to talk to his teacher a bit, but it took 2 weeks before Gabriel would say a word about it. Even still, they don't want to 'go there' very often, and if they do, it's usually because they can't fall asleep because they can't stop thinking about rolling over, or had nightmares. Eli will occasionally talk about Mama's bloody face. Gabriel will randomly freak out in the car if the wind is too strong, or if the roads are questionable and he thinks we might go in the ditch again. Jared is young and mostly unfazed by any of this.
I've had a lot of hurdles to get over as well. The first day after the accident, we had to drive in Josh's car to go see the truck, and I started to freak out because the roof was close to my head and it was too soon and too familiar having been trapped up against the roof the day before. It took me weeks to get up to the speed limit when I drive when the weather is good, and if it's not, or even if it is, I often drive like an old granny and will go 10 mph below the speed limit, usually a lot more if it's snowing or windy. I feel bad for the people who get stuck behind me. I have a super hard time driving with other people behind the wheel, because it scares me, because while I drive slow and don't care how long it takes me to get places, everyone else still drives normal and at the speed limit, and I often can't handle it.
My memory still isn't all here, which is part of the concussion, and just part of my brain tuning things out. For the first week to two weeks after the accident, people would ask me about the accident, and I would virtually go blank, my mind didn't want to remember anything, and I often didn't know how to answer people or physically couldn't. It's like my mind had an off switch, that would be flipped if I tried to talk to someone about the accident. Now I can talk about things, but occasionally when we get deep into detail, or maybe if I'm just having a bad day with my symptoms, my mind just gets foggy and it's really hard for me to think or talk, the words just aren't there. My mind goes 'blank' way more then it used too when talking to people about random things, things totally unrelated to the accident, and my memory fails way more, and it can be frustrating. I sometimes look at a ticket 10x at work before I get everything on the ticket in place for a customer, even if that person only had 3 things on said ticket, sometimes I look at something, and walk two feet away before it's completely gone and I need to look again, and sometimes it happens over and over again. All these things are likely to go away with time, and sometimes things are way better, and other days are really hard. Concussion symptoms can last for months unfortunately, but it's remarkably improved from the first two weeks, and I'm hoping to just keep getting better from here.
A few random facts about the accident...
*So yes, the accident happened by a river. It turns out that we were two feet from the rivers edge when the truck landed. The river isn't very wide, but one that looks that have steep banks and looks deep, my husband said if I would have been going even 1-2mph more, it probably would have been enough to launch us all the way into the river.
This was about 2 weeks after the accident, I finally visited the crash site, you can still see some tracks even though it had snowed a couple of times... We landed almost directly under where the sun is, but this side of the river bank.
This was the day after when Josh went to the site to look for things that had fallen out of the truck during the crash. You can see kind of where the truck landed, and how the river is right there.
*Yes, the truck is a complete loss. It now rests in some junk yard somewhere to be used for scraps. We had full coverage, as we had just gotten the truck 3 weeks prior, so, although we are still dealing with insurance and trying to get it settled, it should all even out.
