It was about 12:45 or so and I had been to the bank to make a deposit. I had a meeting with our Dean of Students at 1:30 so my goal was to get back to the school and work on homework while I waited for 1:30 to roll around. I had left the bank and was heading down Valleydale. A little down past Jefferson State Community College (Shelby-Hoover campus) I had glanced down at my radio to see what track was playing on my CD and in that micro-second, the cars in front of me had stopped for a left hand turn. It was too late and as I slammed on my breaks, I rammed into the back of a Lexus (I think it was a Lexus) SUV. It happened all in the matter of about, five seconds but those were the worst five seconds of my life. My entire body had tensed up so that maybe I wouldn't get too, too injured when I hit but it didn't help. My head slung forehead and apparently hit the steering wheel (I didn't feel my head hit the wheel, or remember hitting the wheel so when the cops and paramedics came asking, and when I got to the hospital I told them I didn't know what had happened but I found out for sure and tell you about that later) then it was over.
Once I realized what I had done I started to freak out. The first thing that popped into my mind was that my parents were going to kill me. Of course, I knew that wasn't true but that's why I thought. Then I thought about how my car was dead and I couldn't afford another one. The next thing that popped into my head was that I needed to find my phone to call my mom and my glasses so I could see but there was a problem. I couldn't find my glasses and I could only find the face of the phone and the back. My mind went into overdrive and I had no idea what I was going to do without my glasses and without my phone...I couldn't get in touch with my mom, Caleb or ANYBODY. It felt like my nose was bleeding so I reached up and wiped across but when I pulled my finger away there was no blood. Right after that, I wiped my brow and BAM! There it was - blood. I looked in my rearview mirror and there was a deep cut (we have been calling it a gash - lol) right beside my right eyebrow and blood was pouring out (yeah, gross, I know). About the time I started to hyperventilating (I seriously thought I was going to) over the fact that I was bleeding and I couldn't find my glasses or my phone, I glanced into my rearview mirror and I noticed a red dot on the front of the car behind me. Three or four cars had passed by now so an SUV had pulled up behind me. I kept squinting in my rearview because that red dot looked EXTREMELY familiar.
'AUSTIN!' I thought. I hung my head out the window (because my windows were rolled down) and started screaming, "AUSTIN!" And for those of you who do not go to school with me, Austin is Caleb's (my boyfriend) roommate. I saw him jump out and start heading toward me. I was so grateful and thankful to God that he ended up behind me because if he hadn't, I have NO IDEA what I would've done. Actually, I do know what I would've done...I would've lost it. I was already on the brink but I glanced into my rearview for no apparent reason to me but God knew there was a reason (if none of that made sense, the reason was because Austin was behind me in his SUV - lol). Austin said he had tried to call me once he noticed that the car in front of him looked like mine but of course, it wasn't in one piece so it went straight to my voicemail.
Someone for the Vet down the hill came up and said that 911 was on the way and checked on me and the lady in the SUV (in whom I still have no idea how she is - they said her neck was hurt [duh] and her face was cut up a little worse than mine). Everything after that flew by (the paramedics checked me out and I had seat belt burn across my chest [where the seat belt goes across you know], I had a bad scab on my left knee and a semi-bad scab on my right knee and later we found that my left ring toe [since it's the ring finger is it the ring toe?] was missing skin because I had flip flops on and we assume I scraped it against my break pedal) and the next thing I knew it was almost two o'clock and I was headed to the hospital with Caleb (in whom left class once Austin got a hold of him and skipped work to sit with me at the hospital - sweet man) and I had, of course, missed my meeting with Kristie (Dean of Students) and was missing class (Minor Prophets) at that moment (just for those who are wondering, because I had a meeting with Kristie, I had to dress business casual [it was a RA interview] so I had a skirt on. As soon as I hit the SUV, my knees went straight into the dash under my steering wheel and yeah...my left knee has been black, purple and blue since yesterday).
To save money (and it wasn't really necessary for me to ride on a ambulance), Caleb drove me to Brookwood and we were there from about 2:20 or so until 6:15. I sat for what seemed like forever but my pastor at Chelsea COG (Mike Kiker) came and sat with us until my mom and dad got there...OH!!! I haven't told you about my poor parents. Because Austin couldn't get in touch with Caleb, I had him call my mom. My mom said as soon as he said, "This is Austin," she knew something was wrong. My mom called my dad and he was totally tore up but once he heard my voice (when they finally found all three pieces of my phone and I could call him) he was okay. I scared them both to death but trust me, I had scared myself to death. I was shaking like a crazy woman from the time it happened until the time we got to Brookwood. I could barely walk because my legs were like jello. I couldn't sign my name the correct way on the police report because I was shaking so hard - it looked pitiful. LOL! So anyway...the Doctor glued my "gash" together because he found out I have allergic reactions to lydacane (or however you spell it) and he didn't want to make me anymore sick so he glued me up.
Okay. I think that is it, I've been doped up on Motrin all day and I've been working on this blog all day so I don't know how much sense it really makes...I haven't been making much sense. OH!! I'm supposed to tell you how I know that I hit my head on the steering wheel - when mom, dad and I went to check my car out, we found a makeup stain on my steering wheel. Yup - makeup does come in handy for some stuff.