First off, we're okay.
May. 13th, 2002 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaOn our way in to work this morning, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
curiousangel and I were involved in a six-car pile-up. Traffic had slowed considerably as we approached Baltimore on I-95, which may be the reason why no one was seriously hurt. Suddenly, the car behind us hit us hard, knocking us into the car in front of us, and then there were a series of other impacts that shook us back and forth. We were both wearing our seat belts, which did their jobs admirably.
Shock helps a lot, actually. I checked to see if Misha was all right, and then walked up and down the line of piled-up cars making sure that there were no serious injuries and starting to take down people's information. He called 911. Our car was sadly crumpled front and rear, but the frame of the passenger compartment was untouched. We were at least able to start it up and drive it to the side of the road, when the police asked us to.
As I walked up and down the wreck I started feeling more and more wobbly. Dizzy. Headachy. Neck-achy. Unsteady on my feet. Nauseated. I wound up spending most of the next hour and a half leaning against the barrier at the side of the highway trying not to throw up or fall over, and waiting for everything to finish up with the police so we could go to the hospital. Misha took over the information-gathering job, despite the fact that his neck was also aching. We started to piece together what had happened. Apparently, a dump truck swerved to try to avoid an 18-wheeler, and instead hit the woman behind us. She hit us hard enough that her air bag inflated (ours didn't), and she was scraped up a little - including a bloody scratch from the air bag, on her six-months-pregnant stomach. Her car and ours were the only ones so damaged that they had to be towed. At least everyone had insurance.
The guy we hit drove us to the ER at the hospital where I work. We were quickly separated - I stayed in the main ER because of my concussion symptoms, and Misha was sent to Urgent Care, which is one step down. Both of us were strapped into cervical collars. I got a whole series of X-rays - including a pelvic X-ray, because they didn't believe me when I said it was normal for me to have pain when my hip bones are touched - and a cursory neurological exam. We both walked away with prescriptions for 800mg Motrin pills and a dire prediction that we're going to hurt a lot more tomorrow. I was given a scrip for Valium too, which I guess is to relax my muscles. (I wasn't exactly hysterical or anything.) They said that as long as I didn't lose consciousness or have altered mental status there's nothing that needs doing for my dizziness &etc. But the whole ER trip took hours and hours and hours.
Bill came and got us and drove us home. I expect that the dump truck driver's insurance company will be providing us with a rental car, but we didn't want to wait around in the ER with nothing to eat or read while all of that got worked out.
It could have been so much worse. We're lucky to be as safe and well as we are. We're lucky to have insurance that will sort everything out for us. Lucky. We're lucky. But sore.
curiousangel and I were involved in a six-car pile-up. Traffic had slowed considerably as we approached Baltimore on I-95, which may be the reason why no one was seriously hurt. Suddenly, the car behind us hit us hard, knocking us into the car in front of us, and then there were a series of other impacts that shook us back and forth. We were both wearing our seat belts, which did their jobs admirably.Shock helps a lot, actually. I checked to see if Misha was all right, and then walked up and down the line of piled-up cars making sure that there were no serious injuries and starting to take down people's information. He called 911. Our car was sadly crumpled front and rear, but the frame of the passenger compartment was untouched. We were at least able to start it up and drive it to the side of the road, when the police asked us to.
As I walked up and down the wreck I started feeling more and more wobbly. Dizzy. Headachy. Neck-achy. Unsteady on my feet. Nauseated. I wound up spending most of the next hour and a half leaning against the barrier at the side of the highway trying not to throw up or fall over, and waiting for everything to finish up with the police so we could go to the hospital. Misha took over the information-gathering job, despite the fact that his neck was also aching. We started to piece together what had happened. Apparently, a dump truck swerved to try to avoid an 18-wheeler, and instead hit the woman behind us. She hit us hard enough that her air bag inflated (ours didn't), and she was scraped up a little - including a bloody scratch from the air bag, on her six-months-pregnant stomach. Her car and ours were the only ones so damaged that they had to be towed. At least everyone had insurance.
The guy we hit drove us to the ER at the hospital where I work. We were quickly separated - I stayed in the main ER because of my concussion symptoms, and Misha was sent to Urgent Care, which is one step down. Both of us were strapped into cervical collars. I got a whole series of X-rays - including a pelvic X-ray, because they didn't believe me when I said it was normal for me to have pain when my hip bones are touched - and a cursory neurological exam. We both walked away with prescriptions for 800mg Motrin pills and a dire prediction that we're going to hurt a lot more tomorrow. I was given a scrip for Valium too, which I guess is to relax my muscles. (I wasn't exactly hysterical or anything.) They said that as long as I didn't lose consciousness or have altered mental status there's nothing that needs doing for my dizziness &etc. But the whole ER trip took hours and hours and hours.
Bill came and got us and drove us home. I expect that the dump truck driver's insurance company will be providing us with a rental car, but we didn't want to wait around in the ER with nothing to eat or read while all of that got worked out.
It could have been so much worse. We're lucky to be as safe and well as we are. We're lucky to have insurance that will sort everything out for us. Lucky. We're lucky. But sore.
