Crash Story

I had just woken up. I was watching the other driver the entire time. In the right most lane. My bus has difficulty getting up steep hills, and I had my safety flashers on. The other lanes were clear. He was probably driving 80 mph, and I saw he wasn't slowing down. I started pulling off to the side of the road. When he got close enough that he couldn't slow down in time, I sounded the horn. That must have been when he woke up, because less than a second after that he started slowing down. I wanted him to get into another lane but that didn't happen.

When the 26-wheeler hit me, the bus engine exploded, and flames came at me from every direction. My face hit the padded steering wheel, thankfully, because that meant only my hair and the tops of my ears were burned instead of my face. The bus rolled over and skidded into the woods. I undid my seatbelt, climbed straight up, through the driver's side window, and jumped off David's sigil, onto the ground. I ran towards the highway with the goal of being far enough to be protected from possible explosions, but didn't make it far before I collapsed.

When I woke up there was a Good Samaritan there about 60 years old. I saw the other truck was a FedEx truck, the first 20 feet of it totally covered in raw flames. I saw the other man lying on the ground 10 feet from me, barely moving, his whole body black with char. The 60 year old woman told me there was an ambulance here, so with her help, I got up and walked inside.

At the hospital, they said they would give me three shots. I asked what they were. One was an opiate, like oxymorphone. I asked if it would cost extra, and they said yes. I said no, I wasn't in any pain. I asked what the second one was, they said it was an anti-nausea medication to counteract the opiate side-effects. I said no, obviously. The third one was a tetanus shot. I asked if it would cost extra, they said yes. I told them no. I didn't have any cuts from metal, and I already had a tetanus shot five to seven years ago. They said you only needed one every ten years.

And that's mostly how the hospital visit was. I kept it to a minimum. They kept asking me "on a scale from 1 to 10, how much pain are you in?" I would say, "it isn't on a scale, everything hurts a little bit, in so many different ways." The most painful thing about the entire experience was feeling the intravenous needle removed from my arm vein, because it had been taped-on so well.

the pictures do not adequately express how badly the bus was burned. The officers said no matter how many times they tried to put the fire out it just kept burning. They had to bring in a special team to use synthetic fire retardant. The only thing that survived the fire was the $1000 of rock climbing gear I was given as a gift, just the week before.

I was able to spread joy in the hospital. The police officers used a number of verbal tricks to try and get me to implicate myself but it didn't work! They wanted a pee test and a blood test, but I said no. I reached out to the first officer's heart, and by the end of our interviewe he wanted to be close to me and was interested in my life. He told me "curious people make for good policemen." I smiled at his statement of self-identification with me.

My sister has a friend who lived right next to the hospital where I was treated. I got picked up by her, and the whole family went to the best restraunt in town, for her going-away dinner before moving to college.

I found out her dad is a high-ranking lawyer and he said he would be able to refer me to the best lawyers for the case, and would get taken care of really well. At dinner, the restaraunt owner came by and we spiritually connected, exchanging information through our eyes and touching. She said, "You don't know these people? You must have really good Karma, because these are the BEST people in town to stay with." After dinner was over, she changed the bill to $0.01. The dad tipped the waiter $60 because of that.

The mom is driving to Jacksonville today, which is where my sister and parents will be so they can see me. She's also getting us a hotel room. S is coming, today. We'll meet her at Atlanta international airport. Her presence will do more for my emotional and physical health than anyone. I think that seeing me in this especially vulnerable time will touch her deeply, in a way that she can keep.