The week before September 13th, 2004, we had just moved into our new house and a hurricane had caused the electricity to be out for several days. I had just had Mallory almost 5 months ago and she typically rode to school with me so I could breast feed her on my breaks during class. I was attending school at night to complete my bachelor degree in Elementary Education.
The day of September 13, 2004, we had just recently got electricity back on and had begun to get our new house organized. We had finished eating dinner around 5:00 and my friend Kim was coming to pick me up in her Dodge Caravan. Raleigh didn't ask me to take Mallory to school (she could usually make it the 3 hours I was gone without a feeding...if he would have asked me, I would have taken her though) and I didn't ask Raleigh if he wanted me to take her (he would have said, "sure"). So she remained safely at home with her daddy. This was God's way of protecting her because she would have been with me any other night.
Kim arrived just after 5 and I teased my friend, Taryn, that I wanted "shotgun"...I don't fuss for the front seat much anymore..haha. So, I was in the front seat and had my books sitting on my lap while Taryn sat right behind me. On the way to school we stopped at a local jiffy store and got drinks and gum. When Taryn got back in she did not put her seat belt back on but planned on putting it on after she got her stuff situated. We were on a two lane highway, and when we came over a hill I could see a vehicle coming back and forth into our lane about 200 yards away. I remember telling Kim, "that guy keeps coming all in our lane" and I remember her saying, "I know." It was 5:45 on a Monday night and we were about to be hit by a drunk driver.
I vaguely remember running off the road because I can recall feeling the van bump along in the grass as Kim tried to avoid being hit.
***This is what I was told happened after that***
The drunk driver looked as if he was playing "chicken" and followed our van into the ditch. Kim swerved back onto the highway and turned a hard left in hopes that he would strike the back of our van. But he only swerved back onto the highway with her and the vehicles struck head on at an angle with my side and his driver side bearing the brunt of the hit. After the vehicles struck, they ended up in a V formation.
I don't know how long it took for me to come to, but I remember telling Kim that I couldn't breathe and I could hardly see, everything was fuzzy and I could only see the white of the airbag. I remember looking over to the window next to me and seeing what I thought was someone walking up to the van.
Turns out it was a man named John Loftis who worked as a Paramedic Training Officer for a local fire department. He radioed the nearest fire department to alert them of the accident and ambulances were on their way to us immediately...another factor in the success of our accident was that we didn't have to wait for a civilian to call it in to 911 and for it to be dispatched.
I can't remember being pulled out of the van, but they did have to cut the dash away because since Taryn had not yet put her seat belt back on, I had been pushed into the dash and my seat was not able to release and go backwards.
I do remember waking up in the ambulance while they were waiting on the helicopter, Trauma One, to arrive. Funny thing is that I woke myself up with this rattling strange breathing...kind of like waking yourself up snoring, and when I did come to, I told the paramedics in the back of the ambulance that I had gum in my mouth...This still cracks me up that I thought this was important for them to know...They said, "Oh, well let's get that out of there!!" Then the paramedic told me I had been in an accident and I was hurt "pretty bad." He said he felt I needed to be airlifted to the hospital. He was telling me the bones he knew I had broken, my ankle, my arm, and about internal injuries I probably had suffered. Funny thing is, I couldn't feel a thing. No pain what so ever.
I remember when they put me in Trauma One. Kim was already inside on her stretcher and they loaded me in next to her. I remember her telling me, "Hi, Cathy" and me smiling back and telling her, "Hi, Kim"...crazy, huh??
In the helicopter I just kept thinking over and over that if I could just keep looking at the bolt right above me then I was still alive. (I truly feel like they should give victims who have to ride in Trauma One a complimentary ride after they recover because I didn't get to see anything else but the bolt!!)
When they got me out at Shands Jacksonville, I can remember light misty rain hitting me in the face...another thing God had his hand in....holding off the bad weather so we could be airlifted.
In the Trauma room they had all three of us in there together, Taryn, Kim, and myself. Taryn was screaming in pain as they tried to set her two broken femurs. They were asking me questions about Raleigh's phone number, and Kim was yelling to the nurses that he was already on the way to the hospital...I remember thinking, "how come I'm not feeling a thing and how does Kim know my husband is on his way???"
Poor Kim, she was alert through this entire accident. She remembers his face, his hair, the sound of the impact, looking over at me and seeing my compound fracture, then beginning to assess her own injuries. Her phone rang within minutes of the accident and it was her husband calling to say, "hello" before we went in to class, only to find out we had all been seriously injured. He actually was able to make it to the scene of the accident before we were airlifted, then he went to pick up my husband and take him to the hospital. Raleigh remembers feeling left out as well because no one would give him details and the hospital's chaplain had only called him and no one else.
When Raleigh arrived I was still in the Trauma room and he noticed my vitals right off. He asked what kind of pain medication I was on and they said, "none, because we haven't figured out what is wrong with her yet." He said I was as white as the sheet I was laying on and I did not have ANY freckles. Turns out I was bleeding from a tear in my spleen. They were waiting on consent to do the surgery to remove my spleen and after giving Raleigh a brief description of what we need our spleen for, he said, "yes, do the surgery." A lot of people die from this injury because doctors are trying to save the organ, some figure we are born with it so we must need it, when in fact we can live without it!! Thank goodness they didn't try to save mine!!
The doctors came out later to tell Raleigh I had made it through the spleen removal and exploratory surgery on my abdominal cavity, but I was not out of the woods yet. In fact, I remained 50/50 chance of survival for about 4 days.
Okay, this post is LONG ENOUGH. I'll blog about what it was like to wake up the next day in intensive care. I have so much more to say and will continue to post in the next few days. It was a time in my life that affected me physically for over 3 months, and took years to heal completely. I have so many more stories to tell, but I can only type for so long!!!
For now, here are some photos of the accident scene.
Our vehicles, Kim's is the maroon van, his is the green cherokee.
His driver side.
My passenger side.
Kim's van
