Deeper update (2 of 2)
Mar. 14th, 2007 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularNine years ago today, I should have died. And if I hadn't broken a fundamental rule, I probably would have.
---
Back then, I was on active duty with the local ambulance corps (I've talked about that in the past, here and there). It had been a pretty good week; two days earlier, I'd found out (in a rather bizarre way) that I'd been accepted to law school. (Specifically, they called to tell me that due to my LSAT scores, I was eligible for a scholarship; apparently the formal notice of acceptance was still in the mail.) And that afternoon, a good friend of mine from high school, as well as a former member of the corps, was supposed to stop by my house for lunch.
That morning, the pager went off: all available personnel were to report to the ambulance building. At first, I figured I wasn't available, since I had other commitments that day. Then a second page went out, indicating that the first page hadn't managed to summon a crew, and I decided I'd better go down and see if they needed any extra hands.
I hopped in my car - this was my dream car, the silver turbo T-top Daytona-Shelby, five on the floor and a dashboard that made it feel a bit like I was in a starfighter - put the rotating blue light on my dashboard, and headed down to the corps building. An ambulance had left, but I figured I should check and see if they needed any additional people on the scene. The report from the Bat-phone to police headquarters was that yes, they needed additional people; the patient was the father-in-law of another good friend, an active member of the corps. The ambulance had left short-handed; I was to report directly to the scene.
I hopped in the Shelby and drove down, not speeding, but not wasting time either. When I got to the last intersection before the patient's house, with the ambulance already parked on the curb, I unsnapped my seat belt in preparation, and eased into the intersection.
And then everything faded out.
The next few hours have never really sorted themselves out in my memory; they felt like a dream-state, a nightmare, and my impressions are pretty much limited to overwhelming noise and ever-present pain. I recall flashes: the rumbling of generator engines which I dimly recalled as powering hydraulic rescue tools like the Jaws of Life; a moment when a paramedic put an IV into my arm; people telling me again and again what had happened, the answers not sticking in my mind - or maybe each time I came to, I thought everything that had passed before had been a dream.
Maybe that's why concussed people have to keep asking what's going on: not that they don't remember at all, but rather that they can't be sure that what they remember was real.
The story pieced itself together from reports from others, though. Right at the same time I entered that intersection with my blue light flashing, a large Ford Expedition SUV was headed down the hill into the same intersection. It struck my Shelby broadside on the driver's door, with enough force to send my car spinning into a lawn; the driver's window and the glass roof panels imploded, the air bag went off (though it was worthless for a T-bone collision). The whole driver's seat region was apparently stove in.
And since my seat belt was unfastened, in violation of every rule of common sense, I was thrown sideways into the passenger seat instead of being held in place. The people who pulled me out of the car - people who know what they're talking about - estimated that I would have been severely injured had I been belted in, quite possibly killed on impact.
Several people who saw the immediate aftermath thought I'd been killed on impact as it was. Instead, somehow, I didn't even break a single bone. Bloody gashes, impact injuries everywhere, and I was in so much pain I could hardly move, but the most invasive thing they did at the hospital was to suture three cuts to the left side of my head (two cuts to the cheek required two stitches each, and a third behind my ear took only one, and was minor enough that when the stitches came out, I had to tell the physician three times to look for that fifth stitch behind my ear). A cut to my left hand left behind a scar that looks like a crude kanji character of some sort, but that was it. No broken bones at all.
In a sense, every day I've lived since then has been a gift, even though I gripe and moan about the reverses I've seen here and there. Sure, maybe my personal life is a shambles even as my professional life settles onto a solid foundation. But that day, nine years ago today, I think I caught a tiny glimpse of the alternative.
The moment of impact was, and remains, a blank. No sense of place, no sense of time, no sense of anything.
And if I'd followed the rules, that's all my existence would have remained, to the end of time.
I prefer the alternative. I prefer living.
Close entry.
---
Back then, I was on active duty with the local ambulance corps (I've talked about that in the past, here and there). It had been a pretty good week; two days earlier, I'd found out (in a rather bizarre way) that I'd been accepted to law school. (Specifically, they called to tell me that due to my LSAT scores, I was eligible for a scholarship; apparently the formal notice of acceptance was still in the mail.) And that afternoon, a good friend of mine from high school, as well as a former member of the corps, was supposed to stop by my house for lunch.
That morning, the pager went off: all available personnel were to report to the ambulance building. At first, I figured I wasn't available, since I had other commitments that day. Then a second page went out, indicating that the first page hadn't managed to summon a crew, and I decided I'd better go down and see if they needed any extra hands.
I hopped in my car - this was my dream car, the silver turbo T-top Daytona-Shelby, five on the floor and a dashboard that made it feel a bit like I was in a starfighter - put the rotating blue light on my dashboard, and headed down to the corps building. An ambulance had left, but I figured I should check and see if they needed any additional people on the scene. The report from the Bat-phone to police headquarters was that yes, they needed additional people; the patient was the father-in-law of another good friend, an active member of the corps. The ambulance had left short-handed; I was to report directly to the scene.
I hopped in the Shelby and drove down, not speeding, but not wasting time either. When I got to the last intersection before the patient's house, with the ambulance already parked on the curb, I unsnapped my seat belt in preparation, and eased into the intersection.
And then everything faded out.
The next few hours have never really sorted themselves out in my memory; they felt like a dream-state, a nightmare, and my impressions are pretty much limited to overwhelming noise and ever-present pain. I recall flashes: the rumbling of generator engines which I dimly recalled as powering hydraulic rescue tools like the Jaws of Life; a moment when a paramedic put an IV into my arm; people telling me again and again what had happened, the answers not sticking in my mind - or maybe each time I came to, I thought everything that had passed before had been a dream.
Maybe that's why concussed people have to keep asking what's going on: not that they don't remember at all, but rather that they can't be sure that what they remember was real.
The story pieced itself together from reports from others, though. Right at the same time I entered that intersection with my blue light flashing, a large Ford Expedition SUV was headed down the hill into the same intersection. It struck my Shelby broadside on the driver's door, with enough force to send my car spinning into a lawn; the driver's window and the glass roof panels imploded, the air bag went off (though it was worthless for a T-bone collision). The whole driver's seat region was apparently stove in.
And since my seat belt was unfastened, in violation of every rule of common sense, I was thrown sideways into the passenger seat instead of being held in place. The people who pulled me out of the car - people who know what they're talking about - estimated that I would have been severely injured had I been belted in, quite possibly killed on impact.
Several people who saw the immediate aftermath thought I'd been killed on impact as it was. Instead, somehow, I didn't even break a single bone. Bloody gashes, impact injuries everywhere, and I was in so much pain I could hardly move, but the most invasive thing they did at the hospital was to suture three cuts to the left side of my head (two cuts to the cheek required two stitches each, and a third behind my ear took only one, and was minor enough that when the stitches came out, I had to tell the physician three times to look for that fifth stitch behind my ear). A cut to my left hand left behind a scar that looks like a crude kanji character of some sort, but that was it. No broken bones at all.
In a sense, every day I've lived since then has been a gift, even though I gripe and moan about the reverses I've seen here and there. Sure, maybe my personal life is a shambles even as my professional life settles onto a solid foundation. But that day, nine years ago today, I think I caught a tiny glimpse of the alternative.
The moment of impact was, and remains, a blank. No sense of place, no sense of time, no sense of anything.
And if I'd followed the rules, that's all my existence would have remained, to the end of time.
I prefer the alternative. I prefer living.
Close entry.
