Sunday night, phone rings about 11:45. Caller ID says it is my 17 year old, Stephanie. I pick up the phone and say, this better be good. It was. She says, through sobs, "Dad, I got in an accident."
Earlier that evening, a friend of hers called and asked her to bring tortilla chips to school for an end of the school year party they were having. So, Stephanie takes her brother's Pontiac Grand Am, without asking him, and goes to Wal-Mart. There she meets her boyfriend, Jeff. It was stormy and raining very hard that night. They were coming back home, in separate vehicles, when Stephanie turned right onto Colonial Ave off of W 26th St. She lost control of the car and spun out. This was about ¼ mile from our house. Water has been known to stand pretty high in that intersection, though the angle of the turn makes it hard to see until you are already in the intersection.
I was at the scene almost before any EMS arrived. Stephanie was in the car, the airbags were deployed, and the front end of the car was sitting on the ground, the driver-side front tire stuck out at a 45 degree angle. Parts of the auto body were scattered around the roadway. There was an SUV sitting just inches beside the car, a dark vehicle with the passenger door mirror folded back. Stephanie was leaning back in the Pontiac seat and complaining that she couldn't move her neck. Black SUV guy was looking to see if she hit his car or not. He wasn't sure, there was so much noise. The vehicles were so close you could barely fit a hand between them. What Stephanie seemed to have hit was the curb. The curb is very high, almost a small wall and as the car spun it hit the curb at an angle and folded the tire in, breaking the driveshaft and the control arms. The impact was hard enough to deploy the airbags. The back taillight on the passenger side was broken out. We assumed this was from when the tail end of the car jolted up into the air and slammed down again. It was hard to tell because the cars were so close to each other. The police wanted to know who I am. The accident happened right in front of Eduardo's, a bar on the corner of the intersection; they're thinking this is another alcohol related accident. An ambulance pulled up and Stephanie was put on a body board and taken to St. Vincent's ER. Gailyn went with her in the ambulance. I'm ordered to grab Gailyn's purse at home, which is where the insurance cards are, and meet them down at the hospital after I can leave the scene. After some preliminary talks with the police and speaking to Jeff and his friend, Corey, who were right behind Stephanie, I get the incident notification from the Millcreek Officers. Instead of letting me tow the vehicle through AAA, a truck from D'Amico Auto Body shows up and takes the car to his place (mandatory practice, he has the township contract to remove accident vehicles on a public roadway) for a mere $95. That's $47.50/mile.
When I get to the hospital, I find Stephanie has a bump on her forehead where her head hit and broke the windshield. Her neck is sore and bruised – this is from the airbags. She put up her arm to protect herself when they went off and ended up karate chopping herself in the neck. Her ribs and torso are bruised and sore. Jeff shows up. He is taking off work on Monday to be near his girlfriend. Stephanie swears that the car at the intersection was a white SUV not a dark one. She thinks she hit a white one. She insists that didn't hit a dark one, for sure, it was white. But nobody saw a white SUV. There was none on the scene. Jeff didn't see one. Stephanie continues to argue that it was there. We joke that it was her life flashing before her eyes. She closes her eyes and just lies there shaking her head. She thinks she must be losing her mind.
Long story short for treatment, a lot of waiting, preliminary exam, waiting, x-rays, waiting, lab work (they wanted to check for blood in her urine, she said she was having her period, they said they would just ignore that blood, I'm confused – could it be this was really a toxicology screen?), waiting, medication, waiting… they decide to discharge her. There is no apparent internal damage but she is bruised up and will feel it for a long time. They are going to give her some narcotics for the pain and instructions to take Ibuprofen regularly to take down the swelling. Special instructions, they know her neck is sore, but don't wear a neck brace, that will complicate matters by allowing the neck to stiffen up. It will make her worse. By Tuesday, Stephanie will be a wearing a borrowed neck brace. She is like that. To the drugstore we go. The rain is beating down on the metal roof like thunder while we wait for the script to be filled. Gailyn and I just look at each other – another adventure on our journey together. But everything in this one will be okay. Finally we are home at 5:30 AM. It has been a long night. I call my boss and tell him that I will be in late to work on Monday. I quickly explain the situation on his voice mail and go to bed where I stare at the ceiling for an hour where I thank God for my daughter being okay and for having leave that I can take from work.
Monday, coming up on noon, I'm getting ready to come to work and the insurance company calls. We're on the phone for 2 hours. It's too late to come in. I'll just take CB for the day. Josh and I go over to D'Amico's to get some stuff out of his car. I pull a chain saw and an axe out his trunk. I look at him, what are you, a Lumberjack? He smiles and shrugs, it's summer, you have to be prepared for anything. I close up the trunk and do a once over inspection of the car. On the passenger side, starting at the backdoor and going all the way back to the taillight is a big deep scrape. Apparently this is why the taillight was broken. It didn't impact out, it was torn out by something big. Something that left behind a nice big trace of WHITE PAINT. ___________________________________________________
Working Theory: She did see a white SUV. Somebody who didn't want to stick around and answer questions regarding why they were behind the wheel of a vehicle after leaving Eduardo's.
Doesn't look so bad from here...
...but $8700 worth of damage under here.
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