Car Crash Part 1

Ok I’m 10 days’ post car crash. I’ve really thought about whether I want to talk about this as really, it’s still quite traumatic. But talking to Ben and other people has helped so writing it down is going to act as my little therapy session. My injuries were grim so if you are easily squeamish this probably isn’t the post for you. The details of what happened I can’t talk about because the police are involved so I’m just going to talk about what happened immediately after.

It didn’t occur to me immediately that I would crash. I thought I could stop in time. I had my hand on my horn while my feet were flat down on the clutch and brakes. The sound of my horn and me screaming I don’t think will ever leave my ears. It wasn’t an out of body experience it is just the vision of the car still coming closer and my scream over the noise of the horn. The impact of the air bag deploying on my hand sent intense pain through my arm and numbness followed by the most intense pins and needles through my hand. I knew I had also hit my head but the pain in my arm masked anything else. I remember screaming in pain. I remember Amber crying out to me. And the intense panic and shock of what had just happened. Feeling so vulnerable. Unable to move and unable to comfort my baby who had seen the whole thing from the back-passenger seat.

I can’t talk about the other driver so ill skip to hospital. A couple had stopped when they had seen the crash. They had called for an ambulance but the ambulance was unsure of the location so they drove me and amber in their car. I kid you not that couple are my guardian angels. The road we had been travelling on is usually deserted and that day 2 cars stopped to help. I still dread to think what would have happened if they hadn’t been on that road 1 minute behind me. When we arrived at a&e I was put on a trolley and had blocks put around my head in case I had damaged my neck or spine. people were asking me questions about my date of birth, my address then they wanted to know about amber. I was still crying. I had my eyes closed. At this point people were trying to contact my parents. The woman who had stopped in the car with her husband was carrying Amber and kept reassuring me she was near she told me amber was still here with me and she was fine not to worry. Someone came over and started talking to me and I reached out for their hand with my left hand and just held it they stayed with me whoever it was until I was moved to a bay in resus. In resuss I went to open my eyes but could only open my left. I was crying and my ears felt wet. Doctors kept asking what had happened asking where the pain was. I was calming down but kept randomly coming back to tears. A doctor then put his hand under my neck and began asking if I had pain in my neck shoulders and back I told him no. they decided to take the blocks of my head and sat me up on the bed.

Someone takes photos of my face but I can’t remember who. I can hear doctors checking Amber over and asking her to mover her head and to open her mouth. I hear her telling a nurse about her bunny and a wave of relief comes over me that she’s ok. Its then I go to wipe tears of my face and I realise I’m crying blood out of my right eye. I had realised in the car that I had a cut on my outer eyelid but the blood was also coming from my tear ducts now. I don’t remember feeling freaked or alarmed by this. My arm was still so painful that I didn’t care about anything else. They managed to ease of my coat ii had been wearing while I screamed blue murder with pain. They then asked to take my hoodie off and I begged them to cut it. After they customized my hoodie cutting off one sleeve I got the full view of my arm. My hand was bleeding but my forearm was bent in the middle and fat. They had to x-ray it which meant manipulating the position of my arm for the best view of the break. Turns out there were two breaks in it. The two bones in my forearm had both snapped so when they lovely nurses on x-ray department were picking my arm up the reason I was screaming in agony was my hand wasn’t being held up by anything. just skin attached my hand to my arm.

As soon as the x-ray pictures came back the doctors wanted to do surgery right then. Unfortunately, I didn’t plan very well as I had had lunch right before going to pick amber up so instead they had to give me local anaesthetic and gas and air to pull the bones into place to reduce nerve damage. I was told I would have surgery the following morning to put metal plates in my arm. Great! My mum then arrived thank goodness and I’m very thankful to her that her face didn’t recoil at the sight of me. I have since seen the photos that were taken when I was admitted. I looked like id been in a fight with Mike Tyson I looked horrific. I had had to leave a voicemail for Ben telling I was in hospital and he needed to call me back. I was very relieved to see her anyway. She could occupy amber while I was seen to for my eye. What first looked like a job to just put steri strips over my cut eyelid turns out it needed stitches. After a trip to get a CT scan, it then turned into an optometrist looking at my eye ball and telling me I need emergency surgery within the hour because they think my eyeball has ruptured and stitches in the eyelid would be done during theatre. Forgot to mention I was on morphine by this point so the arm was no longer an issue being in plaster cast past my elbow. Now I was facing two lots of general anaesthetic in 12 hours and one of those surgeries is on my eyeball.

Ok that’s as far as I’m going today. My eye op went well in the end. 10 stitches in my eyelid but luckily no rupture to my eye. Il have to do these posts in sections because it is way too long to fit into one. I’ve tried to make this slightly light-hearted but bare in mind this the single most traumatic experience of my life. I’m still recovering I’m still processing what happened and how life has now changed. These posts will just come as and when I’m ready to type them. I set this blog up to document the year and what a hell of a year its turning out to be!

Abi x