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Cobalt
2010-06-10, 04:47 PM


This couldn’t have ended much worse than it did.

I’ll recap the events that transpired over the course of the last few hours:

It was a going away party for a friend of ours from school (we’ll call her Sarah, for the sake of privacy) at a local pool. Friend and I arrived at about noon, maybe twelve thirty or so, and Sarah herself showed up with a few more people at maybe one o’ clock. We spent the day till about 3:00 messing around and having fun, till one guy, we’ll call him Max, decided that we’d be having even more fun with… I don’t know, like, tubes or something for the pool. It was something stupid, I know that much. I’m thinking he was just trying to get some time with Sarah away from everyone else; they seem to have a thing for each other, which the rest of us make fun of them constantly for.

Anyway, Max took Sarah to head to a store somewhere nearby to buy a few of these things and we don’t hear from them till maybe 3:30-40. Apparently, they got in a car accident. Max was driving, so we all assumed the worst (he drives waytoo fast, trying to make turns at 45 mph), but when we asked him (his cell phone didn’t break in the wreck) he said that the other car hit him. He doesn’t lie, so that’s probably what happened. But I’m suspecting that he was hit mostly because he was showing off to her or something, zooming through an intersection, but I don’t know for sure, though; we didn’t see any accident’s on the ride home.

Well, after hearing that they were in an accident, the rest of the group, save for me and two others, decided to head off to help them. I mean, all of us wanted to go, but they were a bunch of idiots and decided to leave all their stuff at the pool, said someone needed to stay and watch it, picked the three of us, and left without giving us a chance to say anything. Now, let me explain why this is a major problem: The pool is for locals and their friends only. They sell keys to the three foot high gate to residents of the apartments nearby. I live nowhere near there, but I count as a friend of a resident, and can stay so long someone has a key and can vouch for me. There are no guards or a pay booth, by the way- if you have a key you can just walk in, or if you feel like trespassing you can hop the fence and jump in. Now, the rest of the group left and had all their things with us at the pool. The entire group, them, Sarah/Max, and us three that stayed behind, were all using one key to get in and out. This was a mistake. The group that left after the car accident took the only key. You need the key not only to get in; but to get out as well. The only way, the only way, for us to leave was to hop the fence. Which is very heavily frowned upon here, even if it’s just to leave the place; how do they know if you didn’t just hop the fence to get in and that’s the reason you hopped it to get back out? Anyway; With about three bags worth of towels, phones, etc. we sat there for about 15 minutes before we realized that they could be gone for hours, and we had no way of leaving. And of course, some chick was eyeing us like we were planning a robbery from across the pool the second most of the group left. During the 15 minutes, we called the group that left a few times and ended up with the following knowledge of the situation:

One- We don’t know anything about the other driver involved in the accident.
Two- We don’t know if everybody is alright.
Three- Sarah has no memory of the situation, and was taken off in an ambulance.

She has amnesia. That tripled the horror factor. This could ruin everything that she had planned; we don’t know if it was a mild concussion, shock, or if she actually lost brain cells. She was planning on going to study in Japan for a year. This could potentially stop that from happening. Despite having nothing to do with it, I’ve never felt worse my entire life.

Well, about ten minutes after we received this information, along with a few other facts about life, we decided that we couldn’t stay; we stuffed everything into the bags people brought with them, tossed them over a fence, prayed that nobody saw us and called the police thinking we were trespassing, and walked to our friend’s apartment nearby. Nobody stopped us, but it was a frantic walk over there, let me tell you. After about another half hour, one of the friends (who is my neighbor and is how I ended up going to the party) managed to get their mother to drive down to the third friend’s apartment, pick us up and drive the two of us home. The third friend’s dad, whom he called while we were waiting at his house, didn’t seem very happy that his son had jumped the fence at the local pool. We left before he got there.

To sum up, I went to a party, the hostess Sarah leaves with almost-boyfriend Max and gets in an accident, ends up with what we’ve been told so far is freaking amnesia of an unknown degree. I hopped a fence to get to a friend’s home and awaited pick up without knowing if Sarah is even alright, and effectively left that friend’s house with an angry father coming to yell at him for… Basically nothing. Add to that that a few electronic devices broke at said party from exposure to water, my iPod among them; this was a really bad day. And it started out so great...

I don’t even know if she’s conscious right now. And I have absolutely no idea what’s happening right now to the driver (Max), or even the other people who went to check on them. It sucks.

The Succubus
2010-06-10, 04:51 PM
Holy s***.

My thoughts go to Sarah and also to Max, granted, it was a silly thing he did but the poor swine's conscience must be screaming blue murder at him. =/

Comet
2010-06-10, 04:57 PM
Wow, life can get pretty weird sometimes.

Best of luck, hope everything goes as well as it possibly can.

Syka
2010-06-10, 05:01 PM
My mom and best friend got rear ended back in October.

It was my friend's first time being in an accident.

She was on leave from Iraq. :smalleek:

Life is bizarre.

Fifty-Eyed Fred
2010-06-10, 05:02 PM
That seems a superlatively ruinous end to the day.

It's always important to remember that life goes ever onward, however. At least you have not come to any physical harm.

mucat
2010-06-10, 05:21 PM
That's frightening. My thoughts are with you and Sarah; I hope she's fully recovered soon.

When you learn more about how she is doing, please let us know.

Eon
2010-06-10, 05:26 PM
*hug*

I hope everything gets better.

Cobalt
2010-06-10, 06:44 PM
At least you have not come to any physical harm.

Funny you should say that. The friend who took us to his apartment and I almost convinced Sarah and Max to take us with them to the store, but we were talked out of it and stayed. Seeing as I don't know the full extent of the damage to the car, we may or may not have died had we gone.


That's frightening. My thoughts are with you and Sarah; I hope she's fully recovered soon.

When you learn more about how she is doing, please let us know.


*hug*

I hope everything gets better.

Thanks. On Friday, at least a few of the people who left to check on them at the accident scene will be showing up at an over-summer school thing we do for the next few weeks, so I'll be asking them everything I can about this then. I'll come back here and post the details about it when I get back tomorrow.

Lord Loss
2010-06-10, 06:52 PM
I hope everything works out. *Hugs*.

KilltheToy
2010-06-10, 08:40 PM
:smallfrown:

My sympathies for you, Sarah and Max.


I don't know if this will help or not, but I've found there's one bit of advice that applies to pretty much every situation:

It could always be worse. Not just for you, obviously.

Cobalt
2010-06-10, 08:54 PM
:smallfrown:

My sympathies for you, Sarah and Max.


I don't know if this will help or not, but I've found there's one bit of advice that applies to pretty much every situation:

It could always be worse. Not just for you, obviously.

Yeah... Oh, God, I hope she's okay...

The worst part is not even knowing what's going on.

CoffeeIncluded
2010-06-10, 08:59 PM
Holy crap. :smalleek: I wish I knew what to say but I'm really not that good with this kind of thing...

Eloi
2010-06-10, 09:02 PM
I know how you feel kinda, my grandpa died yesterday and someone stole his wallet from his corpse, and my parents are preoccupied with finding it today.

Froogleyboy
2010-06-10, 09:22 PM
My thoughts go out to you and your comrades. It seems a very bad way to end ones day. I hope Sarah regains her memory and goes to Japan.

jlvm4
2010-06-10, 10:25 PM
I know how you feel kinda, my grandpa died yesterday and someone stole his wallet from his corpse, and my parents are preoccupied with finding it today.

I am so sorry to hear that. Hugs and prayers to you, too.

Lycan 01
2010-06-10, 10:35 PM
Oh wow. I'm sorry to hear all that, man. Can't you call the hospital and ask about the patient's status? :smalleek:

loopy
2010-06-10, 10:36 PM
Wow, not fun. :smalleek:

My mate Dan lost his short-term memory once, after his head collided with a series of heavy objects in rapid succession (ball, foot, goalpost, foot, ground) during a soccer game.

Spent most of the next day asking who had won.

It is worrying, but the most common form of amnesia is only shortterm, and will sort itself out once either:
-bruising around the brain stops.
-brain routes around it.

She'll be okay. :smallsmile:

KoboldRevenge
2010-06-10, 10:42 PM
Crazy! I think you should make a movie :smallwink:

Cobalt
2010-06-11, 01:03 PM
Alright, so I'm feeling much better about all this than yesterday. Still slightly worried, but there's a lot of reassurance that she’s okay, so I'm calmer.

I talked to a few of the people today, including Max, who showed up shortly before leaving for a job interview. Sarah’s alright; or at least, she’s better. The car was hit on the passenger side, so while Max walked away nearly unscathed, Sarah took the brunt of the damage and suffered a mild concussion. She’s recovering in her home now (apparently the hospital let her out sometime last night, for reasons I can’t quite grasp) and her memory is back, which is a huge relief, needless to say. This’ll slow things down a bit, but she should still be going to Japan.

Funny thing; Max was still wearing this bracelet thing the hospital gave him today at the school. Unfunny thing; he’s getting blamed for the accident. The cop sided with the woman who hit him despite Max having the full green light and not being the only car that was driving in that direction. Suckitiude.

But everyone’s alright, and Sarah should be perfectly fine in about a week and a half. Or at least fine enough so that she isn’t confined to a bed. Thanks for the concern, everybody; I’m sure she would appreciate it if she read this.

mucat
2010-06-11, 01:11 PM
I'm glad Sarah is going to be OK. If the hospital let her go home after a head injury, they must be pretty confident that it's not going to get worse -- that's one thing that they don't take lightly.

Best wishes to her for a fast recovery!

Syka
2010-06-11, 02:38 PM
Yeah, a hospital wouldn't let her go unless they were confident she was going to be OK. My mom had a concussion from when she got rear ended and, other than memory loss regarding the rest of that day* and off-and-on headaches that lasted about 6 months, she didn't even need to be hospitalized. It sucked for a while, but wasn't life threatening.





*It was scary when we realized this, several weeks later. The conversation was something like:
Mom: What did we do the rest of the night?
Me: I don't know, I was at work. You could ask C (my friend who was in the car with her).
Mom: You were?
Me: Yeah, til 10:30. You picked me up.
Mom: Did C go home?
Me:...*worried at this point* No...she spent the night 'cause we were picking Sister up from school the next day...
Mom:...
Me:You don't remember it do you?


Yeah...we let her doc know about that.

Obrysii
2010-06-11, 02:44 PM
Funny thing; Max was still wearing this bracelet thing the hospital gave him today at the school. Unfunny thing; he’s getting blamed for the accident. The cop sided with the woman who hit him despite Max having the full green light and not being the only car that was driving in that direction. Suckitiude.

Typically, police always side with the older person - or from my experience, the person with the newer car (they're more reputable).

If the woman is worth anything, if she's in the wrong she should come forward with that. In general, side-swiping someone is always your fault - unless the person ran a red.

If what Max says is true, that he had the green light and she ran a red and hit them, then she is 95%* at fault.

*Insurance companies always say part of it is your fault because you were at that location at that time.

Syka
2010-06-11, 02:49 PM
Obrysii, unless the younger person is an attractive female. My mom (with my friend, who was on leave from Iraq, in the car) go rear ended HARD by some idiot girl. They were at a red light and before my mom even had a chance to start moving, she got pushed into the intersection by the girl. Our bumper was fine, but it had been pushed in hard enough that our METAL LICENSE PLATE was bent noticeably. We also had the back panel of the trunk fall off.

The girl did not have a single charge brought against her. My friends who work for another local police station were all appalled the cops didn't do anything other than write up the most basic of reports, without assigning any blame, despite it clearly being her fault.


It really depends on the cops, sadly. Some are fair, some side with the older driver, some side with the younger driver. It all depends. Always hope you get a fair one.

mucat
2010-06-11, 03:01 PM
If what Max says is true, that he had the green light and she ran a red and hit them, then she is 95%* at fault.

If she simply ran the red, then she's at fault. If she was trying to make a right turn on red (note to readers elsewhere in the world: this is legal in the U.S., but you have to yield to existing traffic in the lane you're turning into), then she would almost always be at fault, but there are exceptions.

If Max was going way too fast, then the cop could decide that the other driver didn't have time to see him coming, or that she reasonably would have expected to have time to make her turn. And if he made a lane change into her lane just before the intersection -- especially if he didn't signal, or if he made the change to pass on the right side of a slower car -- then it would definitely be his fault.

Between the fact that the cop blamed the guy who was going straight on a green light (unusual for the cop to do, even if the other driver is older), and the fact that Max's friends already considered him a dangerous driver before this happened, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he did something to contribute to the crash. Even if there there really was nothing he could have done to avoid this crash, he had still damn well better change the way he drives. Cobalt, if after this he goes on driving way too fast and making high-speed turns, then kick his ass, take his keys, and report him to the DMV.

(You can skip the first step and maybe the second, at your discretion. Don't skip the third.)

Lycan 01
2010-06-11, 04:38 PM
Glad to know your friend is okay, at least. :smallsmile:

Flame of Anor
2010-06-11, 11:01 PM
Wow. Dang. :smallfrown:

I'm glad Sarah is going to be okay. Max should definitely contest the decision, though. When my mom was a teenager, she was driving along a road and a car zoomed out of a driveway and hit her car. The cop sided with the (older, of course) idiot driver--who had in the meantime moved her car so it would look like it was my mom's fault--but the decision was overturned in court!

Lord Loss
2010-06-12, 11:23 AM
Glad to see everything's going well. According to my understanding of canadian law (and rules of the road) Max should not be at fault, unless he was speeding. By alot. Mind, though, I don't drive (yet) so I could be wrong.

This must have been awfully traumatizing...