Ill advised left turn: Semi involved, Picture of brain.

[Beebs]

So Tuesday morning about 10:00am I was driving to Holland, MI for work in the company pick up. To do this from Middlebury you take US131, which for most of the trip is a 4 lane divided freeway. It was quite snowy and the truck is rear wheel drive. I have no idea what happened, but somehow I turned left into the median and managed to cross it, which is surprising since it is one of those fairly large ones with grass in the middle, and I presume there was a fair amount of snow build up. As I made it all the way across I hit the rear axle of a semi trailer with the right (passenger) side of the hood of the pickup.

The semi I hit was pretty much fine and able to go on his way, at least to a truck stop; nobody but me was hurt, thankfully, and I can't really complain about any serious injury.

Considering what could have happened, my brain splattered all over the road, I got off with just a grade II concussion and some aches and pains, mostly where the seat belt was. One of the weirdest things is that there is almost no bruising; a tiny bit of yellow has shown up on my hips in the last two days, but that is all. The lack of bruising is really weird because I tend to mark up pretty easy.

All I remember is some bits and pieces of Monday night, and then waking up on my couch around 4PM Tuesday, and even that took some work; at first I didn't remember watching the superbowl, or any of Monday. My memory of Sunday night and Monday came back later Tuesday night. After the crash I called my father and told him about it, then proceeded to hang up and call him back 2 minutes later to tell him the exact same thing; he just played along so as not to confuse me, which is sort of funny if you take out the brain injury and almost dieing part.

What is a bit strange is that there was no sign of impact on my head or rug burn type marks on my face from the airbag, they think I was able to tense up enough to keep any impact with the airbag to a minimum. My momentum on the seat belt was enough to twist the seat to a noticeable degree.

Here are some of the medical images I got for my trouble

X Ray of my spine from the front. Notice that you can see the marks where the seat belt was. Not sure what exactly caused it as there is no visible bruising on my skin, but it could be internal bruising or just compressed tissue.


X Ray of my spine from the side


CT scan of my brain. There is a whole series of pictures because it shows different levels, but I just used this one because it shows my eyeballs and the clearest picture.


So really, as cliche as it sounds, I do feel a bit like I have been given a second chance at life. In all reality I was about 2 feet from being completely fucking dead. I am pretty glad I don't remember anything because I imagine that would haunt the shit out of me. As some of you know I have had some other car accidents and a couple concussions, but this one really feels different.

My advice to everybody is:
Wear your fucking seat belt every fucking time!
Also, do not turn left into oncoming semis.