Well, now I know what it feels like to get hit by a truck.
Three days ago, I was walking down a street. A quiet, empty street - or so I thought. My car was on the other side of that street, parked under a tree in front of a low-slung, adobe apartment building. Nobody was coming in that far lane, up the street from me. I glanced to my left, down the street, to see if anyone was coming in the near lane. Three or four cars. They always come in bunches. I waited to cross, timing my pace so I'd end up right across from my own car when they'd passed. Another glance to the left as they roared by me. Ah, good. The light at the corner turned amber. No more cars in sight. A good time to cross -- though, keep the senses tuned for anyone rounding the corner. Nope, no one, and now I'm quite far from the intersection. Confidently, I step off the curb and head toward my car. I'm only a few minutes away from its air-conditioned comfort, taking me home, towards my cool apartment and full refrigerator. I'm hungry and looking forward to being home, all my errands complete.
Suddenly, "WHAM!!" I feel the impact and look up as down I go. DAMN!! Where'd that truck come from?
It was a light pickup truck. A Toyota Tacoma, dark green with a shiny chrome radiator grill. As I hit the pavement, a question arose. WHY? Why had it hit me? My head bounced off the asphalt. My keys flew out of my hand and my feet flew up. Youch! Now that I realized I was hurt, I was getting mad. Why did this driver hit me?
I started to get up. The keys had flown into the next lane, and soon enough, they'd get run over. But OMIGOD! that's blood coming from my head!
People were surrounding me now, urging me to lie still. A woman with a cigarette dangling from her mouth put a towel over my shoulders and then, a moment later, an unzipped hoodie sweatshirt over my legs. I am yelling, yelling, crying out in the direction of that chrome grill over and over again. "Why did you hit me?"
Finally, a voice reaches me. "Because you were crossing the street."
I lift myself up to look. Alarmed voices tell me to lie back down and stay calm until the ambulance arrives. Before I do, I catch a glimpse of a smallish, stocky woman, perhaps 65, with short white hair, sunglasses and a leisurely outfit of pale pants and a pastel sweatshirt.
If you've never taken a ride on an ambulance with a rigid collar and a forehead strap and lots of other straps fastening you to a body board so you cannot move AT ALL ... well, you haven't really lived. Except for how damned uncomfortable it is, and noisy, and the fact that someone's sticking needles in your arms and all you can see is a metal ceiling, it's a hell of a ride. Any unevenness of pavement goes through your body in a funny series of jolts that must be excruciating if you're truly in a lot of pain. As I am not, except for my head, which I cannot move anyway, so I have time to think about these things.
When the ambulance came to a stop, the paramedics took me and my body-board smoothly out onto the gurney to wheel me into the trauma unit. It's a funny thing about the body's response to shock. Once it's all over and you feel safe, there comes a moment when your brain will flood your brain with endorphins, in the wake of the adrenalin that is receding, receding ...
For me, that moment came as they wheeled me through the entrance structure into the hospital. I watched the gray-painted concrete ceiling grid pass above me; I smelled the mechanical smell of oil and fuel and exhaust. My brain did the endorphin thing, and tears started to flow out of my eyes. I felt great! I was alive! What a wonder life is!
Then I hit the trauma team's hands and the room was filled with energetic -- almost frenetic -- energy. Someone was narrating the scene, telling me the obvious. I was going to experience a lot of chaotic activity. People would be asking me a lot of questions. What day is it? When were you born? What is your address? Did you lose consciousness at any time? Does it hurt when I do this? Does it hurt when I press there? Can you turn your head to the right? to the left? Any pain? when I do this? Push your foot against my hand. Any pain?
They removed all my jewelry. They cut my clothes off me (!) and draped me with towels. They CT-scanned me and x-rayed me and finally told me that the tests came back negative for serious injuries. They assigned me to a "room" -- actually a space along the hallway, which was lined with other victims of accidents, stabbings, and other traumas. The hallway is used so regularly, the hospital has had numbers painted on the walls; just enough space for each gurney to fit in a space,parallel parked between doors leading to labs and supply closets and surgical recovery rooms.
It was all over but the paperwork. Now begin the weeks of therapy and bureaucracy, as I find a lawyer, fill out forms, send in insurance claims and a request for the police report. Such an experience is bound to cost a lot of money. I can only hope insurers will come through, I will heal, and I will find some clothes to replace the ones destroyed in the ER.
