[Rant/story] Missed HS grad to recover from concussion

[Alan Bolte]

There's just no good way to sum up the last four days.

June 3 was the day of my girlfriend's graduation. I was supposed to graduate the following night.

In the morning of the 3rd I woke up fairly early for no longer being in school and made my way to a local restaurant/meeting place for my Senior Breakfast, at which they passed out awards and made boring speeches. Typical High School stuff, not much to say about it, really. Then at noon I went over to my school for graduation rehearsal and pizza. My physics teacher had finally located my textbook in some random drawer in her room (quite typical of her), thus saving me from paying $64 for my diploma. I took my cap and gown home, not knowing I'd only ever wear the cap, and that in a hospital bed.

I cleaned up a bit and drove myself over to my Mazy's house. For those who aren't familiar with me, we've been together since Sept. 2002, but have been friends since early 1998, and are very close. She's also my avatar.

Together with her parents, her grandmother, her uncle and his girlfriend, and Mazy's friend Jamie, we left in two cars and traveled to first the Cheesecake Factory (great food, but fairly expensive), and then to her graduation. It was a fairly typical graduation, I guess: music, speeches, the walk, mostly boring and not too memorable. My sister goes to Mazy's school, so she was in the band and needed a ride home.

I remember finding her and heading out into the parking lot, but nearly everything between that and midday on the fourth is missing from my memory. As a result, the rest of the evening is what's been told to me by Mazy and others.

We arrived safely at Mazy's house and dropped off Jamie, who got in her car and began the long drive home. I do mean long, the girl
lives in another town entirely. We said good evening to Mazy's family and headed off in my car, a black 1991 Honda Accord named Mortimer. It had been my dad's for about a decade before he bought himself an SUV and let me drive it. Dad has a history of buying that same model of car and then ending up with it totalled. We drove back to my house, about a mile south and in the same neighborhood.

We dropped off my sister, said hello to my parents, and decided to go to blockbuster to rent a few movies. I can't remember what we ended up renting, though I think one of them is The Abyss, which I still haven't seen.

The street layout is something like this: there is a rectangle of residential space, mostly houses, between four main roads. I live near the southern road, and Mazy lives near the middle. The western road is called High Street and the northern road is Morse. The Blockbuster is a bit north of Morse, just off of High. There is a traffic light at the intersection of High and the Blockbuster parking lot.

I was sitting at the traffic light, probably between eleven and twelve at night, still the 3rd. Mazy was telling me about some nightmare she had had, and as the light turned green, I kissed her in hopes of comforting her. I started to accelerate, but the nose of the car never got very far.

A drunken driver had run every red light going about 60 mph from the freeway to High coming down Morse, and he wasn't going to stop now. He crumpled the front of my car, spun it so that our rear ends collided as well, went a bit farther and hit a pole. We ended up a few hundred feet away on the other side of the street. I hit the window next to me and slumped over the wheel, immediately knocked unconscious. Mazy was twisted and thrown all around, but her seatbelt mostly restrained her, and she avoided hitting her head. Once things stopped moving, she was thrown into panic once again by the fact that I was unconscious. She shook me, and I eventually came around. My window had shatterred when my head hit it, and my blood was all over her. Miraculously, we both got up and out of the car on our own power. A women who had been in the car behind us at the light came over to help, and used her cell phone to call our parents, the police, and ambulences. The police carted off the drunk, who was no more harmed than we were and probably less so, and we went off in the ambulences, I having slipped back into unconsciousness.

Mazy had a long wound on one leg that quickly scabbed over, or was never actually bleeding, I'm not sure which. She had countless huge, deep, blue bruises all over her body, as well as a bruised lung. Worst of all, the seatbelt had broken her collorbone cleanly in half and separated it by two centimeters. She goes in sometime between tuesday and friday for surgery, and will have to have some screws and plates in her for several years. We wonder if she'll be able to pick up radio signals or set off airport alarms.

I had a number of cuts and bruises, with a large gash running from my forhead well into my hair that was well scabbed over by the time I awoke. My real problem, though, was my concussion, which had me babbling incoherently in the ER and prevented me from remembering anything past May, or even what I had just said, until my memory starts up again midday on the fourth.

Hospitals are their own special breed of 'boring, with brief moments of terror,' as war is said to be. I won't go too deeply into the emotional trauma of our stay there, as you can likely imagine it, and I was asleep for most of it.

My family and hers visted on the fourth, and some of our extended family was already in town for our graduations. Jamie stayed with Mazy for about 9 hours, and once Mazy was more or less alright they repeatedly left her room in the trauma ward to visit my room, about three doors down. I spent my graduation night staring at the ceiling and tolerating my grandparents. I stayed the morning of the fifth, and left about ten.

The situation at home is quite another story in itself, so I won't bother with the details, but suffice it to say things have spun crazily back and forth from absolutely perfect to the worst they could get. For most of today, however, Mazy was here, and everything was good.

End of story, we're all mostly fine.

[Shinova]

Oooh fun, fun, fun! j/k


Reminds me of a story where a friend and his dad got in a similar accident and ended up with their car over a broken fire hydrant. The water spewing out actually made the car bob up and down off the ground for a while.

[Alan Bolte]

The water spewing out actually made the car bob up and down off the ground for a while.

Heh, cool.

[SyntaxVorlon]

Oooo, I know where that is(I live in Bexley myself), sorry to hear you missed graduation man.

[Dalton]

Glad you two are OK. Hope you sue the drunken cock.

[Phantasee]

Glad you two are OK. Hope you sue the drunken cock.

SUE HIS ASS! Seriously, good to know you're ok. That all sounds very painful....I think you just put me off driving for a few years.

[Saberslash]

Very sorry to hear that you missed your graduation. At least you seem to be relatively fine now. Your alive, thats what really matters...

And I would think about doing some legal action against the drunk driver.

[Alan Bolte]

Well, obviously, we want to talk to a lawyer first. However, seeing as he was driving a very expensive new car and is insured, and will probably get off without much in the way of a criminal conviction, we definitely want to sue his ass. I can't say I'm all that angry at him personally, because that's just not how I am, but I want the guy off the road for as long as possible and I want him to be forced to consider the magnitude of his stupidity, even if it means ruining his life for a while.

[Andrew J.]

I'm glad you and your girlfriend are okay. You should do something about that driver, though, like sue him. Or rip the skin from his body until he goes hasre from screaming.

Nah, suing is probably better.