Life can change in the blink of an eye, and 10 days ago I was reminded of this.
My car is a black convertible Volkswagen Beetle. I bought the car largely for two reasons:
- I was in my 40’s and had never owned a convertible
- One of my favorite songs is “Black Magic Woman,” by Santana.
Now you may follow the logic behind the first reason: I was “practicing” for my mid-life crisis. But how does the second reason fit in?
Well, to explain that I will have to take you back a few decades, sans kids.
My husband and I were backstage in the green room hanging out with a band in between sets. It was a relatively hype band at the time; although, I can’t remember the name of the band. What I do remember is sitting in this empty room that contained only folding chairs for the band, Byron, and me to sit in. However, the room was far from empty because cleverly crafted sentences covered the walls and ceiling. The one-liners were spin-offs of popular songs like: “Accuse me while I kiss this guy” which is an obvious reference to a Jimi Hendrix’s song. My favorite, for obvious reasons, was “Got a black magic marker.” It was written, of course, with a black sharpie. It was referencing Santana’s “Black Magic Woman.” You know, “Got a black magic woman…”
That song is one of those songs that when I think of the lyrics, my brain becomes alive with Santana’s rhythm section. With that one phrase, my mind begins to dance. That was the idea behind the entire word-filled room: to challenge you to find the song that went with the purposefully incorrectly worded phrases, and then set your mind to dance.
Fast forward several decades, and there I am sitting at my computer and thinking, I need a new car. I would love to have a black Beetle, convertible of course. I would blare Santana from its radio.
“Got a Black Magic Beetle” popped into my thoughts, and with a few moments of searching the Internet and grabbing my credit card out of my wallet, I made myself a car magnet for a car I didn’t own. The magnet was oval shaped, white with black lettering that read, Got a Black Magic Beetle.
One week after the magnet arrived, my husband and I were buying a black convertible Beetle.
It had to be!
What else was I going to put my car magnet on? The green Ford Focus I drove? I think not!
So off I went in my Black Magic Beetle.
I traveled everywhere in that Bug.
Everything I needed always fit. Groceries, my guitar, the surfboard, my daughters, my six foot one husband. It all fit. I never had to leave anything behind.
A few years after purchasing my Bug, I bought a black Great Dane and named her Petunia. She loved to ride in the Bug. She would sit belted into the front seat until one day I couldn’t get her to fit in the front seat, and it was not for lack of trying on both Petunia’s and my part. Much to her sorrow, she became relegated to the back seat. At first, I could fit my two daughters and Petunia in the Bug, but Petunia kept growing, as Great Danes are known to do, so it was not long before the back seat was all Petunia’s.
I would put the top down and drive around town with Petunia sitting regally in the back seat, with her ears flopping in the breeze. Sometimes, she would lay down and rest her head on the console between the driver and the passenger seat. She loved to ride in the Bug. It didn’t matter where I was going. She wanted to GO with me in the Bug.
The years went by, and me and my Black Magic Beetle were very happy together. She hugged the corners when I took my daughters on a trip driving along the Blue Ridge Highway. She braved the flooding when she drove over bridge after bridge to Fripp Island during a severe storm that left my daughters asking if Bugs could float. We thought we were going to be swept over the bridge and into the waterway. She happily took us to the beach year after year. She even put up with a good-natured prank from my friends who stuck a sticker on her bumper of Lionel Richie with a halo over his head that read Hello.
Those happy times have ended.
While driving my Bug to work 10 days ago during rush hour traffic a car pulled out in front of me.
It defied logic.
There were cars in front of me, cars behind me, cars going the opposite way, and there was a school bus in the right turning lane.
I noticed the school bus turning, and I saw a big garnet colored SUV at a stop sign at the road the school bus was turning onto.
My mind registered the SUV. Then, my eyes looked forward.
There was no reason to think the SUV would pull out into traffic.
The traffic was moving at 45 mph.
Before I had time to react, that SUV was in front of me, and I was slamming on the breaks watching my car hit the side of the SUV.
I think people call it “T-boned.”
I learned that day that when something traumatic happens, your mind freezes at the point of impact.
I saw garnet and silver and felt my head hit what I thought was a cinder block, but it must have been the airbag that deployed.
Even now, I can still see that garnet and silver appear before my eyes, and in my mind I am constantly slamming on the brakes, waiting for impact.
It hurt. It hurt a lot. Then, I felt nothing, except the pain in my fingers, wrists, and left leg.
Everything became foggy after that. My world became a bad cell phone connection, where I could only hear fragments of the conversation.
A man with a blue shirt and a name tag opened my door.
Somehow he got my phone. How did he get my phone? I don’t know.
Where was my phone?
It’s usually under my purse.
Did I get it for him?
Did he get it himself?
I asked him to call Byron, my husband.
Someone said something like, “We have to get her out of the car because it might explode.”
I noticed the smoke and odd smell coming out of the dashboard.
I undid my seat belt and put the car in park, which was really hard to do because my hands were swelling and painful to move.
I started to try and get out of the car, but a woman with a phone to her ear yelled at me to stay in the car and not move.
“But someone said it might explode,” I said, or at least I think I said that.
I was told not to move, and if they saw a spark, they would pull me out of the car.
That was not very reassuring.
If they saw a spark, an explosion might not wait for them to haul me out of the car.
Within minutes a man was by my side asking me questions like, “What’s your name?” “Where are you from?” I think he wanted to see how coherent I was.
I’m a talker. Just ask my daughters. So talking while in shock wasn’t difficult for me.
I am not sure what I responded, but I was talking.
A fireman came and told me that the car was not going to explode and that airbags let off smoke and an odd smell when they deploy.
That was a relief.
12 years ago, my friend Barbara died when her car caught on fire after an accident, and she could not get out of the car. I knew all too well: it happens.
And just so you know, when someone is in shock (I discovered), the people that run up to help seem absolutely beautiful. I believe it is because what they are doing is absolutely beautiful.
Everyone that came up to gently poke and prod me asked the same thing when they saw my seat belt undone, “Did you have your seat belt on?”
“Yes, of course, I did,” I responded. “I thought I had to get out of the car because it was going to explode,” I explained.
Either the fireman or the paramedic (I can’t remember which) started feeling around my neck to make sure it wasn’t broken. I expected a broken nose. I didn’t even consider a broken neck.
There was an odd lump on my thigh that concerned everyone. I have no idea how it got there. Maybe the steering wheel?
I heard them yell they needed the neck board or something like that. And someone shouted how are we getting her out of there.
“Can I just get out on my own?” I asked.
It was important for me to walk away.
At that point, there were three fire trucks, police, paramedics, and an ambulance. I do love Holly Spring’s First Responders. They were on point that morning.
Traffic was stopped on both sides of the road. It was quite dramatic.
A lady named Michelle had my phone and had been successful in calling Byron. She was very kind, very beautiful.
The garnet SUV ended up on the other side of the road. There were a couple of dents on her left passenger side. I saw an infant’s car seat in the back seat.
I asked the fireman, the paramedic, the police officer, everyone that entered my space if the baby was OK. Because I drove a Bug that is low to the ground, my car hit below the child’s car seat, and the baby and young woman driving the SUV were fine.
I was very relieved.
The accident was not my fault. There was nothing I could have done to prevent the accident, other than not going to work that day, but even if I didn’t go to work, someone was going to hit that car. She pulled right out into ongoing traffic.
She was lucky that I hit her.
She was lucky that I didn’t drive our SUV that morning.
I was lucky that no one was hurt.
I would rather be the reason for someone’s success than be the cause of someone’s demise.
The First Responders were all very happy that I was able to stand up. They feared my femur was broken, but it wasn’t.
I remember seeing Byron walk past the stopped traffic, the fire trucks, the police cars. He walked with purpose, and no one said a thing.
He later told me he was annoyed at the traffic jam and couldn’t understand why all those fire trucks and police were on the road. I think he imagined my car was just broken down. Then, he pulled over to the side of the road, started walking, and found it was my Bug and the SUV that were the cause of the commotion. It was not a good day for Byron.
The police got my statement, I can’t remember if I was in my Bug or in the ambulance, but I do remember the kindness of the Holly Springs police officer, and yes, he too looked beautiful.
He said my story matched that of the witnesses and the driver of the SUV.
“My Bug, is it totaled?” I asked one of the Responders.
“We think so, but we are not going to worry about that because you are more important than a car.”
I wanted to cry, but I didn’t.
My neck, hands, and wrists were hurting, and I had a surreal floating feeling.
The EMT checked my vitals and said I was stable, but I needed to be seen at the hospital.
They could take me to the ER, or Byron could.
At that point, Byron was on “must Protect Laurie” mode, and he puffed up and said, “I will take her.”
Dang, I thought. It would have been fun to ride in the ambulance, and maybe they would have used the sirens.
“You are going to hurt a lot,” the EMT told me gently. “Just be prepared.”
We climbed down the ambulance steps and walked to Byron’s car.
I was in shock, and my adrenaline was still pumping through my body. If I were told I needed to jog to the ER, I probably would have.
We spent the day in the ER. They wanted to make sure I didn’t have a brain bleed or internal bleeding. I was given an IV for fluids and morphine.
A despondent x-ray technician wheeled me out of my room and down the hall to x-ray my hands and chest.
The technician placed my hand in a difficult position for me to hold and said, “Let me know if this hurts.”
I responded, “That hurts.”
“OK, just hold it right there,” and he walked out of the room to press the x-ray button.
After what seemed to be the 20th hand contortion, I said. “I feel light headed.”
“OK,” he responded.
“I am going to faint.”
No response.
“I am fainting,” I said as the dark room faded away.
I was told I was out for a minute and had a seizure. I’ve never had a seizure before.
I opened my eyes to three worried faces staring down at me as if I had done something wrong. While I was out, they got me from the chair I was sitting into the rolling hospital bed, and with great urgency, they rushed me back to my room.
After an EKG, IV fluids, vitals checked and rechecked, the ER doctor said he thought I fainted because my body was in pain.
I held back the urge to roll my eyes and say, “Duh.”
I felt very sorry for poor Byron. We took a 5:30 AM spin class that morning (I call it marriage therapy, he calls it spousal abuse), and he never had a chance to change out of his workout clothes or get a shower.
I left the hospital with a significant concussion, bruises, and contusions on my hands and wrists and an odd egg-shaped red lump on my thigh.
I got home around 5 PM that day and told Byron, “Well, looks like I won’t be going to work today.”
I have spent the last 10 days in a dark bedroom, and I promise you I am not talking Fifty Shades of Grey here. My vision is blurry and doubled, my head hurts, my back hurts. My hands and wrists are healing and only hurt occasionally now. The leg injury turned into a giant red, black, blue and green monster of a bruise on my thigh with the egg shaped lump still there.
I’ve been to the general doctor, the cardiologist, the orthopedic surgeon, and saw my massage therapist for some energy healing.
All this for one person’s mistake that completely defied logic.
I’m not angry at the young driver. If I had the chance to talk to her, I would say, “What you did was really really stupid. Don’t ever do that again.”
I am grateful she and the baby were not harmed.
And my Bug?
She did what she was supposed to.
She protected me. The car kept me as safe as she could, and for that I am grateful.
I am also grateful for the fellow with the name tag, and the lady named Michelle who ran up and helped me. They took charge until the First Responders arrived.
I am grateful to the Holly Springs firemen, paramedics, and policemen who responded to the car crash so quickly and treated me with respect and kindness and allowed me to keep my dignity during a very frightening time. Just so you know, helping someone in a time of crisis makes you look beautiful!
I’ve been amazed at the show of support and prayers sent my way as I heal.
I could spend the next 50 years asking myself, “Why?”
Instead, I will concentrate on how lucky I am that God was with me. I have no life-threatening injuries.
I am holding tight to my mantra:
I’d rather be the reason for someone’s success than the cause of someone’s demise.
I will miss my Black Magic Beetle.