Car Accident on Main Road - Vehicles Destroyed, Drivers Recovering

The car bolted forwards. I lost control of the steering wheel as I slammed the break, almost in time. The blue car in front of me jerked across the street and into me, sending me spinning across the lane. I thought I would die. The seat belt could only keep me tied to the seat for so long; immediately after impact, the airbag swelled up and burst into my face.

The car wouldn’t stop spinning. The windows ejected shattered glass from all sides, some shards cutting my skin as they flew about. My heart was running circles around my lungs. I was absolutely terrified. Time stretched before me, and I thought the car would never come to a halt. Seconds later, in what seemed like forever, the car slammed against a wall and I was propelled into the passenger seat. All was still. My arms and legs felt stiff, yet too weak to move. Blood had splattered onto my limbs and stuck to my hair like scarlet honey. It tasted like metal, with a slight aftertaste of battery acid. Not that I know what that tastes like, but it’s what I imagine it tastes like.

My chest released the nervous tension that had accumulated in my ribcage. Lungs expanding and heart slowing, I exhaled deeply and burst into tears. It was so childish. I bawled and cried like a baby.

Where was help? A howl erupted from my throat. I almost ran out of breath. Too tired to call for help, yet too scared not to try, I banged the roof of the car with what little energy I had left in me.

“Get me out!” I heard myself gasping.

Desperation possessed me. A burst of adrenaline which would surely have me killed stupidly awakened a primal instinct to survive. My arms flew out, directed by a mind of their own, and yanked the door handle backwards. Inadvertently, I kicked the door open and ran out into the open, still haemorrhaging like crazy. My vision was so blurry and my head so dizzy what with the sudden fall in blood pressure due to the hypovolaemia that I was ready to collapse in the street and get run over by screeching tyres. However, my body wasn’t going to let that happen. My hips automatically jolted backwards against the car and my rear end glued itself to the car. Hands out in a protective pose, warding off all evil, I remained in that position, leaning onto the car.

I felt woozy. Woozy meant a foggy mind, unable to think or recall past events, a spinning head, and numbness in every muscle of my head. Meanwhile, my extremities were tingling with that nasty pins-and-needles sensation. Placing my fingers onto my chest, I shivered at how icy cold they had become. How much blood was I losing? My thoughts were all over the place.

***

I didn’t see it coming. Maya was texting some other guy. I was pissed. She’d broken up with me an hour earlier, then begged me to drive her home. All the while she chatted with her new guy, just to rub in the fact that she was totally and completely over me. When she wasn’t looking, I blasted the music at full volume, just to tick her off. She didn’t even flinch. Her eyes were engrossed by the words of this new guy, “the better man”, as she referred to him. I know I’m not flawless, but that’s got to hurt. Being told you’re not good enough for someone? Awful. Just nasty.

“Pay attention to the road,” she muttered angrily. “My messages are less important.”

“Sorry, but I’ve only been demoted to being your ex an hour ago. I can’t help feeling jealous and betrayed.” Oh, the frustration was there all right. “Let me be.”

“Whatever.” She dipped her piggy button nose back into her phone, eyes glued to the screen.

Screw her, I’m done being pushed around. The next road was a red light, but I was so upset I still can’t remember seeing it turn red. I know I saw an orange light flare up as I zoomed past the traffic lights. A tiger was jumping and roaring inside of me, ready to leap out of my throat and eat Maya alive. My teeth were sharp enough to bite her if she provoked me. I was seething with rage. Puffs of hot air escaped my nostrils loudly. Every single one of my neck muscles was contracting.

Arms strapped to the steering wheel and eyes ahead, I pressed on the accelerator. The forward jolt made Maya drop her phone. A laugh so intense and maniacal escaped me. I couldn’t help it. She bent down to pick it up as I kicked the pedals furiously and changed gears abruptly just to scare her.

The tyres screeched as we rolled on. The burnt rubber smell suffocated my nostrils. I’d gone a little too far with my nasty tricks.

 “Watch OUT!”

Maya screamed two seconds too late. The car skidded backwards on impact. It was a split second of surprise, followed by intense fear that resulted in panic. The world was turning in slow motion. Every bead of sweat pouring from my forehead, every breath of stale air, every millisecond became intensified as time grew still. I felt each one separately. My senses were hyper focused. The car I had run into was spinning like a ball of dough in a cake mixer. The cars driving past us were moving at snail-speed. I witnessed the windows of the other car disintegrate into innumerable shards of broken glass. The girl at the wheel seemed to have slipped into unconsciousness. The seat belt was strapped to her body, thankfully. As soon as she was out of my sight, time sped up again and I noticed how I was being tossed about like a salad. The car slammed into a wall, crushing the boot in the process. Maya lay face down on the airbag in the passenger seat. Was she dead or alive? I was breathless. I would’ve wanted to shake her our of that state, to pour a bucket of cold water on her face, but my arms had lost all sensation. One of them was broken, for sure, because it dangled loosely, and the other one felt sore from holding onto the wheel for safety. Maya's face was bruised really badly. She had knocked her cheek against the window and hit her forehead against the airbag as it popped up surprisingly fast.

Maya. Was she dead? My arms were useless. I bent over her and tapped her brow with my forehead.

***

Another car crash. Third one this week. We were called at five past six to rush to the spot. I steered the ambulance out of the garage while Luis mentally prepared in the seat beside me. The sky was heavy with cumulo nimbuses. I prayed for there to be no rain when we arrived on the spot. I cannot work in wet conditions; it just makes my skin crawl when my uniform is soaked in fluids. I need to be dry at all times.

The sirens wailed and a sea of cars pushed themselves to the side to let us pass. I managed to squeeze through the narrow space and take a left turn without stopping. Part of being an ambulance driver is that you have to guess whether you can press the brake or speed through a crowd of normal people cars.

The blue lights were still flashing when we approached the scene. I stopped the ambulance where a policewoman was busy placing orange cones to keep the area secure and ripped off my seatbelt. Luis was already kneeling beside the car wreck when I saw the woman coughing up blood. She had been battered into a pulp by the sheer force of the crash. Her lower ribs were broken and she was haemorrhaging internally. This was a very delicate situation. We needed a stretcher fast and to deliver her to the hospital. There, someone would administer a drug that promotes clotting and quickly give her a blood transfusion once her blood type had been determined. All we could do was provide oxygen, monitor her parameters and help her deal with the shock. This woman was definitely going in for surgery. This was an emergency.

Luis grabbed the oxygen mask and we quickly tried to figure how to get her into the ambulance without making the situation worse. If we moved her in the wrong way, the haemorrhage could worsen or a broken rib my puncture a lung, or worse. I wasn’t taking any chances.

The policewoman on duty came over and informed us that on the other side of the road there was the other car wreck. A man and a woman were trapped inside a blue car. The woman seemed unconscious – hopefully not dead – and the man had been banging his head back against the head rest and crying for a while now. We got the internally bleeding woman in the back and drove to the other car, where, as the policewoman had said, a man was fighting against his seat. A police officer on the spot opened the car doors for us and helped us ask this man some questions. Luis checked for a pulse in the unconscious woman, but could only feel a weak fluttering of the vein beneath his fingers. She was alive, but barely. We put the two patients in the ambulance with the other woman and zoomed back to the hospital. The man could stand and was perfectly conscious. When we asked him his birth date, he replied calmly even though his nerves were clearly on fire and he was still under shock. He gave us his name and that of the woman accompanying him in the passenger seat.

Maya Chavez passed away and her organs were plucked from her body, as I later discovered from one of the nurses. She was a registered organ donor, luckily for the hospital. Not that anyone was thrilled to have a patient die in such an abrupt manner, but within the big cloud of negativity we do try to look for some upside. Just to stay sane. The man had his left arm fitted into a cast and the nerves on the right wrist sutured back together where they’d been slashed. And for what I heard of the other woman, she went in for a surgery that lasted many long hours and came out alive, miraculously. I only know because I asked Becky and Cindy to tell me about the patients I’d rescued that day (out of sheer curiosity).

Next time I saw those two, they were arguing about their insurance. The man fell to his knees and begged for forgiveness – he had made the mistake, it was his fault his passenger had died, he stated, he had caused the accident. When the police questioned him, he was blank. Luis and I watched from afar as we sipped our coffee. Coffee breaks are generally very short, but they give us enough time to see what goes on in the emergency department.

That is all I remember really – but you news reporters already have their story, so why ask me for more? I’m just a hospital member of staff. I know as much as I am permitted to know. Becky thinks they are getting along now. All the better. I hope you writers don't twist your story to make it seems like they can't stand the sight of the other.