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Again for the second time in too short of a time, this was not the post I had planned for today. This weekend, I visited with friends in Austin, Texas for a birthday bash for my best friend's birthday. A great time was had by all of us and we spent a ton of time laughing, hanging out at the pool and visiting a ton of great bars.
Me, Brittany, Marly. We've been friends for 15 years.
Got a selfie before the heat/humidity ruined all my pretty. Ha.
I left Sunday afternoon around 2 to head back to my mama and daddy's house in Houston. For some reason, I had a bad feeling about the trip. So bad, in fact, I called Brittany and her boyfriend as I left. I was worried something was wrong with my car. She and her boyfriend were heading into Austin to grab some bar-b-que before they left. I told her not to worry about it. I had been having some trouble with a slow leak in my back tire and I was sure that it just needed air. I'd be fine. I stopped for gas and put air in my tire, which was in fact low, and I got on my way. I made it all the way through Highway 71 without incident and merged onto I-10 east, which meant I was only about an hour from home. Things were moving along swimmingly until, suddenly, everything in front of me just stopped. A complete stop. And I couldn't. I was on my breaks and doing everything I could to stop my car (including trying to surface some kind of unexpressed X-Men power), but it was to no avail. I hit the car in front of me at about 55 mph. Ouch. The airbag deployed, burning my right arm and ripping my left. The seatbelt burned my neck.
Right arm burn before it formed.
I was able to make it to the shoulder and ask the other car if they were okay. They were. I was not. I was able to call my mama and make it halfway through a call to my insurance company before I started panicking. My left arm was bleeding kind of a lot and when Logan from Geico asked me, "do you have any serious injuries?" I lost it. Total hysterics. I was pretty convinced I was going to die. The other couple came from their car and reached in my windows (I couldn't get out of my car) to comfort me. I couldn't believe their kindness. The EMTs showed up to examine me in the ambulance even though I kept saying I wanted to go home.
Vital signs: normal.
Burns and lascerations: check.
Bone injury: possible fractured left hand.
The EMTs were shocked that I didn't have any other injuries. No head and neck pain, no back pain. That kind of thing is pretty standard when you hit something that fast. The female lead EMT noticed my CrossFit shirt and said "oh, she does that CrossFit stuff. No wonder she's okay," before treating my left arm. They treated me as best they could and, since I refused to go to the hospital, left me in the capable hands of Brittany and Tim, who had been just a few miles behind me, saw the accident and pulled over (thank God for guardian angels). Brittany and Tim waited with me until Mama Nancy showed up (she dropped everything and got in the car to my rescue--my hero, seriously). She showed up with a bag of ice (for my hand), 3 diet cokes, and 3 water bottles and, as she put it: "You see my supplies? I'm ready to take over the world with this stuff. Let's get home and get you taken care of." The entire way home, I was determined to convince her that I didn't need to go to the emergency room clinic. "I'M FINE," I said, "I don't NEED no stinkin' ER." Nancy was not having any of my shit. We got back to Katy and had me checked out. Again, the nurses and doctor were pretty shocked that I didn't have any head, neck, or backpain. The tech noticed my shirt and echoed the EMT: "good thing you do that CrossFit stuff, a crash with high speed like that can really kill you. Kills regular people all the time." Thanks, CrossFit. We got my burns and cuts taken care of (after I threw a tantrum about it and didn't want to be touched) and my hand x-rayed. Thankfully, no breaks. Just a really bad sprain. Which is great, because a hand cast probably would have looked really terrible in my graduation robes. All in all, thankful to be alive, thankful no one else was injured, and thankful for guardian angels in the form of parents and friends.
If you're one of the people who saw my posts about the wreck and took a second to say a prayer or wish me well, thank you. Never fear, your girl is just as stubborn as before the accident and my sense of humor is still in tact, even if my car is not.
