Craziness Ensues

Jon was driving to an appointment on Thursday afternoon when he was in a car accident. He is fine! It’s been quite a whirlwind of a week though dealing with the accident and the aftermath. We thank our lucky stars, guardian angels, and Heavenly Father, that Hannah had just been dropped off at Grandma’s house for a play-date while Jon ran his work errands, or things could have been so much more stressful for us. Hannah was spared the trauma, so we vicariously have been spared the drama of post traumatic stress disorder on a toddler!
Jon was driving Eastbound on 7800 South at about 45 miles per hour. He was all alone on the road at 2:30 in the afternoon, so how the guy that pulled out in front of him missed the sky-blue car coming at him is a mystery. Still, that is just what happened. This guy, pulling out from the south side of the road to turn westbound onto 7800 moved right into Jon’s path, and neither of them had any time to respond. One minute he was clear and the next minute Jon’s elbows locked, bracing for impact…his foot never touched the brake before they hit. The noses of the two cars slammed together and then ricocheted apart. The other guy spun around in place to face westbound in the middle of the road. Jon’s car sped across the two westbound lanes of traffic, up onto the curb, and finally came to a stop against the fence of a house at nearly 2700 West.
At that particular moment, things could have been so much worse! If the guy had pulled out any earlier or any later, one or the other car would have been t-boned, and the damage/injuries would have been extensive. If the light at 2700 West had not been red, Jon would have plowed into untold amounts of head-on traffic. If any other cars had been following Jon, it could have involved numerous other drivers hitting the other car. Despite the difficulties associated with any kind of accident, we’re all FULLY aware that things could have turned out SO much worse. WHEW!
Jon’s airbags all deployed and the car was filled with smoke from the explosions. As soon as he came to a full stop, he jumped out of the car to get away from the smoke, and was thinking clearly enough to be entertained by the fact that his horn was still blaring…he thought that was just a Hollywood car accident sort of thing, so he had to smile in his head over that. His second thought was that he had to call me and let me know that he’d been in an accident. Good boy. He went back into the car to retrieve his phone and called me to let me know where he was and that he’d not been hurt that he could tell. I grabbed my things and drove to him as quickly as I could, and I shook until I had him sitting in my own car with my hand in his.
Luckily, there was a Highway Patrolman driving by about 30 seconds after the accident, and he stopped to make sure that everyone was okay. He radioed for another policeman and the entire incident was taken care of and cleaned up in less than half an hour. By the time I reached Jon, the tow truck was just driving away with the other car, and Jon’s car had already been moved, the cops had ticketed the other driver and everyone else had gone about their business. Jon was left standing all by himself on the side of the road with a small pile of his possessions by the time I was able to pull up beside him.
After everything, Jon walked away with one large bruise on his left knee and he had a tender left ankle from rolling it a bit during the accident. His chest is still a little bit sore from where the seatbelt held him in, and his hands are quite scratched up from where the airbags deployed while he was holding a death-grip onto the steering wheel. Again…it could have been SO much worse. Whew!
We drove right back to Grandma’s house and picked up Hannah (lots of hugs and kisses all around for the little one), got Jon some Ibuprofen to stave off the oncoming soreness, we called the insurance company to start the ball rolling, and then went through with Jon’s appointment dropping off some photos to a client. What a trooper. Unfortunately, the photos had been bent a little bit in the accident, so the client is going to have to wait for another set of prints to be completed. It was late in the day before we finally heard anything from the insurance company, and even then they had to tell us to call back because the other party had to file their claim before we could join in on the action. We were down to one car for the weekend, but as of yesterday, the claim had been filed, our car was being scheduled for a review, and Jon is now driving a Dodge Caliber rental until we hear more about what the insurance company would like to do.
What a wild weekend it has been!
Thanks to all of you for your love, support, and those generic prayers of safety for the ones you love…it works!…keep it up. We certainly will!

Our sweet hybrid son, Elroy on the bed of the tow truck. Bye, Elroy!

~ by bylorena on November 18, 2008.