The Day I Was In A Pile-Up: A Disjointed Reflection on Surviving A Car Crash

It was 4:30-ish pm on the northbound toll road. Rush hour, in Austin. I, again, cursed myself for scheduling my classes this semester so that one ends at 4:20, meaning I’m driving in rush hour traffic on one of the main freeways 2 days out of the week. Every minute spent in the car, a minute off of the 2 hours I have left to go home, eat, nap, whatever before my 7 pm class at the other campus. But, such is life. 

What makes this particular area of the toll road so frustrating, however, is how about half the people on it drive like complete dirt bags. See, it's a merge-left overpass exit. Meaning that everyone coming from one side, naturally, should stick to the leftmost lane, and allow those coming in from the rightmost lane to merge in. This causes a bit of a bottleneck, especially at rush hour, but is fairly simple. Frustrating, but will resolve itself if everyone coming from our side just… and the guy 3 cars behind you just shifted to the rightmost lane just because “less cars in lane means go faster.” Meaning they're about to zoom directly into another line of cars waiting to merge into the single lane. Making the bottleneck even worse. Great. 

Now if you rinse and repeat this process, you'll come across the situation I found myself in: The aforementioned bottleneck jamming traffic half a mile down the road from the ramp. I groaned out my favored expletive, and resigned myself to the monotony of a touch-and-go traffic jam. I was prepared to point and laugh from the confines of my 2-ton death machine at any Tesla I saw in the window, or ramble to nobody in particular about my Pathfinder character, both to keep myself occupied. But for a moment, it seemed more go than touch. The white van in front of me scooted along a bit, I maintained 3 car lengths behind as much as possible, we were going about 20-30 mph on a road posted for 60. Overall not bad. Still not great, I'd like to–

Why did the van stop so soon? 

Brake, brake, stop please–

I feel more than hear the reverberating smash into the van. Pain shoots up my driving leg but I don't know why. The airbag deploys across my chest as the car behind me slams into me too. I smell smoke. I see smoke. Smoke means fire, are the other drivers ok? Is this my fault? Stop the engine, open the door. It won't open all the way. I stumble out. Nothing feels real. Have to see if everyone's ok. I cough, I still think it's smoke. I go to the car behind. Bald, dark brown skin, blue shirt, mechanic maybe? I sputter out “Are you ok, sir?”

It's all a little fuzzy after that. The “smoke” was just dust from the airbag, thankfully. The police were able to get there really quickly, given the car behind the aforementioned blue shirt guy was an off-duty cop that had his radio on him just in case something like this happened. The guy in the van called 911, and the girl in the car in front of him (that's 4 damaged vehicles total for everyone keeping track) was on a call with her dad when the crash happened. Turns out my leg scraped and slammed into the walls around the pedals. The only injury anybody had, cleared by EMS after they gave me some water to clean the scrape with. 

Not that my family could've afforded an ambulance ride anyway. 

The cops got everyone's info together, and one of the cop pairs gave me a ride to a gas station so I wasn't waiting for my ride in the middle of the freeway. I knew I was lucky. I tried to text my mom but it didn't work in Manor. They found me because of my roommate being able to get through to me from Discord. 

My leg really started hurting when I got home. We put some bandages on and watched John Oliver. It was about disability benefits. I got 3 calls from ambulance chasers within that 45 minutes. I went upstairs and didn't talk. I texted my friends I was ok, and then I slept. 

Gods above, among, and below I'm lucky to be alive. 

I've said over and over since before I had to learn to drive: I would never get behind the wheel again EVER if it meant I could just get on the train or bus or something to get where I need to go. Walking and riding is just fine by me. 

I HATED driving. Now I hate it even more. 

I have to drive back to the first campus next Tuesday. I'll have to drive back home during rush hour. 

I don't know how I'm going to do it without having a panic attack.

I've been getting better, you know? I have a therapist, an actual ADHD diagnosis, my mood's gotten better, I've been trying meds, I've been engaging with interests and nerding out about Deadpool and Wolverine, I went to my first punk show and put my first band-bought patch on my vest. I've been doing great!

I haven't had a panic attack in 9 months. I know I'm going to have one if I try to drive in rush hour again. I have to though. Because I can't afford not to. 

The car is totaled. We've been driving it since my brother was in diapers. My parents picked me up in it for the first time after my aunt's boyfriend screamed at me for talking during Mulan. I was 4. 

We won't get enough from the insurance. I HAVE to get a job to help pay for everything. Job means more driving. More stress. Not that I haven't been needing a job for months, haven't been trying so hard to just get someone to please just look my way, but still. Now I need it even more. 

It still doesn't feel real. I've been quiet, less present. I'm usually loud and proud. A few hours before the crash, I showed off an ad I made the night before for Audio class. I'm hyperfixating so it was Deadpool advertising his mercenary services. Everyone loved it. I love it. But it doesn't feel like it exists anymore. Like everything is behind a thin layer of… something. Keeping it from being real. Or maybe it's keeping me from feeling real? 

Did it feel real for Wade? When the doctors told him he had cancer? When he tumbled out of the wreckage of the place that hurt him so bad? When he saw how his mutated face looked for the first time? What am I saying, it's Deadpool, he knows nothing's real in his world. He knows he's not real. I know I'm real.

Did it feel real, though? Even if it's not, did it feel real for him? 

I didn't think I'd ever wish to be Wade Wilson. At least he gets to not deal with insurance. At least people believe him when he says he's not right in the head. 

At least when he's in a pile-up, it's just Tuesday and not The Day I Was In A Pile-Up.