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It is now almost a full week since the accident. It has been increasingly a topic of great anxiety but I shall put things in order.
This is a detailed recount of a major car accident with severe injury and some suicidal thoughts.
--
July 8th had us taking a drive to a neighboring city for a handful of errands, my personal ones was finally removing our braces (which have stayed on for so long because of dental surgery) with three other members of the family. I was not driving. There was congestion and the other driver was inattentive. The driver hit our car, pushing us into another car. A second car hit the original driver as well within a few seconds.
I will say the movies do it well. It was normal one second and then suddenly the car was crumbling. I remember thinking oh, we've finally crashed....I have particular anxieties about cars and we were on a bridge. I was sitting in the middle of the car. I was still largely free to move, I had been tossed forwards and covered in water and things and wrestling with my seat belt. I was half leaning over the middle divider for the various buttons and I was looking into the drivers and shotgun seats first. Mother was driving and she was beginning to hyperventilate within moments. She had been tossed around a bit but wasn't bleeding. She was panicking about the shotgun passenger, my frail grandmother.
I was remaining calm. Well I was distraught everything remained distinctly not real-ish and I knew I was one of the only passengers to be able to move around very quickly. I was trying to calm my mother down since her screaming was beginning to stress me out but I was compartmentalizing. I suppose my emotional constipation had its brief positive even though its currently causing me more issues...I digress.
My grandmother was in pain but not bleeding. I held her hand and asked her briefly and reassured my mother before remembering to turn back. In the very back of the car, we had been rear ended severely, was the second oldest sibling.
I will say here quickly our relationship is somewhat strained but we keep a sort of mutual destruction loyalty. I do believe they identify as nonbinary and primarily use it/its pronouns.
It was limp. The backseat was busted and from photos I retrieved in the days since very pushed in. Its body was trapped between where the back seat had been abruptly pushed into the middle seats. I rushed over and lifted its head gently and its eyelids were limp. I was attempting to find any sign of breathing while trying to calm mother down who had begun screaming that it was dead. I tried to clear its airway with my fingers but its jaw was locked. I noticed some slight breathing but it was faint. At some point I screamed for help briefly at some bystanders before trying mouth to mouth.
Ill admit here I've never had emergency training but I think I can be excused, largely. Besides, no one was in a position for compressions. Essentially I wetly blew into its mouth repeatedly occasionally trying to time it on an in breath.
Eventually I managed to remember to ask for mother's phone. My own had died on the ride since. I tried to use it but its screen was wet, and then I dripped blood onto it. That is when I noticed I had been bleeding from my head. At the time I assumed it was a long cut from the pain but I ignored it. I mostly just bled all over everything and myself until my face was 60% scab. Around this time I passed mother a random pillow and kept trying to get her to muffle her screaming with it because she was stressing me...not very effective. Moving on the phone was connected to the car via Bluetooth in some way and had detected a car crash and was already calling 911. I made a poor choice of turning the notification off to try and call directly so I could get some kind of instruction on dealing with my sibling who was still limp and breathing shallowly. When the operator insisted on the location I passed it off to a bystander.
I will quickly name the people I interacted with throughout but I was largely occupied and do not quite remember the order. There was an older couple, a man who approached and claimed he was involved in the crash and then the woman who accepted the phone and gave the address to emergency services. I believe they were the car that hit the car that hit my vehicle. There was another man who began calling outside the car when I yelled and someone who approached the car and tried to work the doors which the car had automatically locked as crash protection.
Without the phone in my hands I was left with my sibling. I took its head in both of my hands and continued breathing into its mouth. Im not sure if it was wholly instinct but I was trying to keep its head still and from flopping. Eventually it began to take large loud breaths that sounded involuntary. Its eyes, from the little I could see of them, were drifting away from each other. I was deeply anxious from the breathing but I reassured mother that it was alive. I squared myself to the concept that this was the best outcome I could ask for in this situation but I continued to try and breathe into its mouth clumsily. I also bled onto its face some and that made me feel apologetic. It began having movements where it would try to rise or turn away and I would try to keep it still and speak with it.
We were like that in the car with me shouting at everyone to relax until emergency services managed to get on scene. A EMT crawled in through the broken back to keep my siblings head stable so I shifted attention to the front seat. Eventually we were all removed with my grandmother and sibling on stretchers. I was checked on site and given a bandage.
Then I met the person in the car who had stumbled out and was crying. He apologized profusely and earlier had tried to open the doors and we hugged briefly before I went to the ambulances. I was still pretty calm. At this point I had decided to fast track this as much as possible so I could be sent home to take care of my other younger siblings and grandfather who we had left for the appointments.
At some point I had been given back mother's phone and contacted a nearby uncle who came to the hospital. He ran into a cousin on shift who supported us while we IDed my sibling and everyone was checked out and managed to get home.
I walked away with extensive brusing and a puncture wound half of an inch above my eye socket. I only needed three stitches but it hadn't occurred to me how close I was to losing vision.
My grandmother had three of her ribs fractured. At her advanced age and her history of broken bones it was a worrying diagnosis.
Mother came out with a concussion and bruising.
Sibling is currently in the OR. It has been unresponsive in a coma for the last week while doctors attempt to assess brain damage and spinal damage. They're currently on a surgical path.
I only got close to crying occasionally in the hospital. I have been struggling to find ways to distract my mind so I dont think about it. I find myself venting about unrelated things to friends and straining the mood. Its difficult.
I have increasingly grown more anxious as the days pass as well. Whenever I see blood I can smell the distinct things from the crash and I remember holding its face in my hands as I tried to clean my blood out of its eyes. I find myself pacing more. Im upset. Im not mad that it happened or wondering why, its statistical, but the moment scares me and the state of my sibling as well. Im too scared to even ask for specifics or see it intubated. My family is particularly shitty at long term stress, youre supposed to get over it immediately and return to normal so its not any help talking with them. Mother only seems interested when I was a bit sorer to commiserate but she usually views these things competitively. I find myself adrift. Its hard not to think lf it.
It sucks. My current closest friend does not really know how to show support and I understand but it leaves me in an awkward anxious place where I feel like I am straining the relationship. I have not made it very public either. I have tried to contact its online friends and it's a sobering reality to deal with. I dont know what to do. I feel like shit. I dont want my sibling to die. Im horrified at the idea of a severe TBI. Its still a minor. Im not going to bother with the sunscreen facial scars are barely noticeable anyway I can barely fucking brush my teeth..I want to kill myself but that is usual. Over the past year I have largely neglected my internal life to focus on an external one. The four years prior I had to keep an internal life to keep myself from killing myself when my external life became miserable and extremely abusive. Now I am not sure where to go or what to turn to and there is so much drama.
I will continue to write where no one will read.
This is a detailed recount of a major car accident with severe injury and some suicidal thoughts.
--
July 8th had us taking a drive to a neighboring city for a handful of errands, my personal ones was finally removing our braces (which have stayed on for so long because of dental surgery) with three other members of the family. I was not driving. There was congestion and the other driver was inattentive. The driver hit our car, pushing us into another car. A second car hit the original driver as well within a few seconds.
I will say the movies do it well. It was normal one second and then suddenly the car was crumbling. I remember thinking oh, we've finally crashed....I have particular anxieties about cars and we were on a bridge. I was sitting in the middle of the car. I was still largely free to move, I had been tossed forwards and covered in water and things and wrestling with my seat belt. I was half leaning over the middle divider for the various buttons and I was looking into the drivers and shotgun seats first. Mother was driving and she was beginning to hyperventilate within moments. She had been tossed around a bit but wasn't bleeding. She was panicking about the shotgun passenger, my frail grandmother.
I was remaining calm. Well I was distraught everything remained distinctly not real-ish and I knew I was one of the only passengers to be able to move around very quickly. I was trying to calm my mother down since her screaming was beginning to stress me out but I was compartmentalizing. I suppose my emotional constipation had its brief positive even though its currently causing me more issues...I digress.
My grandmother was in pain but not bleeding. I held her hand and asked her briefly and reassured my mother before remembering to turn back. In the very back of the car, we had been rear ended severely, was the second oldest sibling.
I will say here quickly our relationship is somewhat strained but we keep a sort of mutual destruction loyalty. I do believe they identify as nonbinary and primarily use it/its pronouns.
It was limp. The backseat was busted and from photos I retrieved in the days since very pushed in. Its body was trapped between where the back seat had been abruptly pushed into the middle seats. I rushed over and lifted its head gently and its eyelids were limp. I was attempting to find any sign of breathing while trying to calm mother down who had begun screaming that it was dead. I tried to clear its airway with my fingers but its jaw was locked. I noticed some slight breathing but it was faint. At some point I screamed for help briefly at some bystanders before trying mouth to mouth.
Ill admit here I've never had emergency training but I think I can be excused, largely. Besides, no one was in a position for compressions. Essentially I wetly blew into its mouth repeatedly occasionally trying to time it on an in breath.
Eventually I managed to remember to ask for mother's phone. My own had died on the ride since. I tried to use it but its screen was wet, and then I dripped blood onto it. That is when I noticed I had been bleeding from my head. At the time I assumed it was a long cut from the pain but I ignored it. I mostly just bled all over everything and myself until my face was 60% scab. Around this time I passed mother a random pillow and kept trying to get her to muffle her screaming with it because she was stressing me...not very effective. Moving on the phone was connected to the car via Bluetooth in some way and had detected a car crash and was already calling 911. I made a poor choice of turning the notification off to try and call directly so I could get some kind of instruction on dealing with my sibling who was still limp and breathing shallowly. When the operator insisted on the location I passed it off to a bystander.
I will quickly name the people I interacted with throughout but I was largely occupied and do not quite remember the order. There was an older couple, a man who approached and claimed he was involved in the crash and then the woman who accepted the phone and gave the address to emergency services. I believe they were the car that hit the car that hit my vehicle. There was another man who began calling outside the car when I yelled and someone who approached the car and tried to work the doors which the car had automatically locked as crash protection.
Without the phone in my hands I was left with my sibling. I took its head in both of my hands and continued breathing into its mouth. Im not sure if it was wholly instinct but I was trying to keep its head still and from flopping. Eventually it began to take large loud breaths that sounded involuntary. Its eyes, from the little I could see of them, were drifting away from each other. I was deeply anxious from the breathing but I reassured mother that it was alive. I squared myself to the concept that this was the best outcome I could ask for in this situation but I continued to try and breathe into its mouth clumsily. I also bled onto its face some and that made me feel apologetic. It began having movements where it would try to rise or turn away and I would try to keep it still and speak with it.
We were like that in the car with me shouting at everyone to relax until emergency services managed to get on scene. A EMT crawled in through the broken back to keep my siblings head stable so I shifted attention to the front seat. Eventually we were all removed with my grandmother and sibling on stretchers. I was checked on site and given a bandage.
Then I met the person in the car who had stumbled out and was crying. He apologized profusely and earlier had tried to open the doors and we hugged briefly before I went to the ambulances. I was still pretty calm. At this point I had decided to fast track this as much as possible so I could be sent home to take care of my other younger siblings and grandfather who we had left for the appointments.
At some point I had been given back mother's phone and contacted a nearby uncle who came to the hospital. He ran into a cousin on shift who supported us while we IDed my sibling and everyone was checked out and managed to get home.
I walked away with extensive brusing and a puncture wound half of an inch above my eye socket. I only needed three stitches but it hadn't occurred to me how close I was to losing vision.
My grandmother had three of her ribs fractured. At her advanced age and her history of broken bones it was a worrying diagnosis.
Mother came out with a concussion and bruising.
Sibling is currently in the OR. It has been unresponsive in a coma for the last week while doctors attempt to assess brain damage and spinal damage. They're currently on a surgical path.
I only got close to crying occasionally in the hospital. I have been struggling to find ways to distract my mind so I dont think about it. I find myself venting about unrelated things to friends and straining the mood. Its difficult.
I have increasingly grown more anxious as the days pass as well. Whenever I see blood I can smell the distinct things from the crash and I remember holding its face in my hands as I tried to clean my blood out of its eyes. I find myself pacing more. Im upset. Im not mad that it happened or wondering why, its statistical, but the moment scares me and the state of my sibling as well. Im too scared to even ask for specifics or see it intubated. My family is particularly shitty at long term stress, youre supposed to get over it immediately and return to normal so its not any help talking with them. Mother only seems interested when I was a bit sorer to commiserate but she usually views these things competitively. I find myself adrift. Its hard not to think lf it.
It sucks. My current closest friend does not really know how to show support and I understand but it leaves me in an awkward anxious place where I feel like I am straining the relationship. I have not made it very public either. I have tried to contact its online friends and it's a sobering reality to deal with. I dont know what to do. I feel like shit. I dont want my sibling to die. Im horrified at the idea of a severe TBI. Its still a minor. Im not going to bother with the sunscreen facial scars are barely noticeable anyway I can barely fucking brush my teeth..I want to kill myself but that is usual. Over the past year I have largely neglected my internal life to focus on an external one. The four years prior I had to keep an internal life to keep myself from killing myself when my external life became miserable and extremely abusive. Now I am not sure where to go or what to turn to and there is so much drama.
I will continue to write where no one will read.
