| Matt D. |
05-30-2004 02:31 AM |
Okay, here's my story. Please save the condolences and tear-jerking for another time. I will have shed enough tears by the time I finish typing this.
Cliff notes for you lazy fuckers: I was in a bad accident and survived along with my parents because we wore our seatbelts, my brother who wasn't wearing a seatbelt didn't survive.
In 1990 my family and I (parents and a younger brother, I was 10 and he was 7) were driving through Iowa on the way to my great grandma's birthday. We were in a Chevy Eurosport station wagon, I was in the left passenger seat and my brother who was feeling ill was laying in back. We almost didn't make the trip because my brother was pretty sick with the flu, but we went anyway. Driving down a 2 lane highway near Nevada, IA a lady crossed the center line and hit our car. I remember looking over my dad's shoulder as he said something and started decelerating and heading for the shoulder, I saw a car heading almost straight for us, possibly fishtailing, and I heard the gravel under the car as we were getting onto the shoulder. The other car hit us on the left side right between the two doors. My dad's window cracked and fell into the door somehow, mine shattered and hit me in the head (or my head hit it, not really sure), embedding a chunk of tempered glass in my head. Our car proceeded off the road into a very wide ditch, probably 50 feet wide to the corn field. Still traveling at close to 50mph our car flipped end over end and the front of the car was the only part to hit the ground, the rear looked new except for the broken window. Unsure how many times the car flipped, but I remember a good 3 or 4 jolts as the car bounced. The car landed upside down, dust and glass everywhere, and a cold feeling on the left side of my head. Keep in mind my age, and I asked my dad if I should open the door... He sternly said, "You can't." We unbuckled, and I fell to the roof of the car and crawled out. Stood up, looked around and touched my head, and came up with a hand covered in blood. I immediately freaked out, and then realized my brother was missing.
I was rushed to the road and cared for by my mom, and then some motorists who stopped. I remember seeing cars upon cars parked everywhere on the sides of the road... People were everywhere looking for my brother. He was eventually found a couple minutes later about 60 feet from where the car landed. He had severe head injuries and a collapsed lung. Within minutes a medical chopper had landed and I was being loaded into an ambulance. We were so near our destination that my grandparents came to the accident scene, and my grandma road with me to the hospital in the ambulance. My mom flew with my brother to Ames, and my dad rode with my grandpa. After I got stitched up and the glass removed from my head, we made it to my great grandma's party.
For the following two weeks my brother was in intensive care because of his head injuries and was in a coma. You could talk to him, hold his hand and tell him to squeeze it and he would. They did some surgery on his skull to relieve pressure on his brain, but it was to no avail. Two weeks we spent in a hospital hoping for him to pull through and he eventually was pronounced brain dead.
I'm not some sort of savior preaching the gospel, but I sure as hell don't want to lose any of you in the same sort of fashion that I lost my brother. Funerals suck, I've been to a lot of them in my 25 years, and I will never get used to it. Please, wear your seat belt.
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