I feel like I'm eavesdropping on a conversation I don't have the right to be in... I came across this thread while googling things trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with me. I read all the stories posted here and was somehow comforted having found people with similar experiences to mine. My car accident, injuries and after-effects pale in comparison to almost every story on this thread but... Still.
On April 18th, 2015 it was a perfectly sunny, dry day. After visiting a friend for lunch, my dogs and I were in the car headed back home. I approached a poorly designed intersection that I'm very familiar with, having lived in this area my entire life. The intersection seems like it should be a 4-way stop but only 3 ways have a stop sign. On top of this, the intersection is on a hill and curves strangely.
As I approached the intersection (I was the only one who DIDN'T have a stop sign) I saw a white Subaru coming the opposite direction and going straight through the intersection. I slowed down and prepared to turn left through the intersection behind her as she exited the intersection. I started to make my turn and and a black SUV who was at the same stop sign the white Subaru had been at decided to try and sneak through the intersection, without stopping, behind the white Subaru instead of waiting for the cars at the other two stop signs and the traffic that didn't have a stop sign to go. This resulted in the black SUV smashing head-on into my car as I stood on the brake, leaned on the horn and screamed at the top of my lungs. I don't remember hearing any noise during the accident besides me screaming for about a minute straight until I ran out of breath and couldn't scream anymore.
The first thing I did was turn to the passenger's seat where my dogs were sitting to make sure they were okay. I patted down one dog and he seemed to be okay. I patted down the second dog and and I noticed blood all over his white fur and I started panicking but I couldn't find any injuries to explain the blood. Then I realized that the blood had to be coming from my right hand. I tried to turn my hand over to see how bad the cut was but I couldn't turn it and I couldn't understand why. Nothing hurt but my arm and wrist refused to work properly. Most importantly though, the dogs DID turn out to be okay. One dog cracked a few nails when he hit the dashboard but overall they were fine and I'm so incredibly lucky that they weren't injured at all because they could have been seriously injured or killed.
I managed to call 911 and then my parents (to come get my dogs since I would need to go to the hospital).
Once I got the hospital I had a 5 inch laceration (beginning on the palm of my right hand, going up between my middle and ring fingers and continuing an inch and a half over the top of my hand) stitched shut and x-rays showing that my right radius was shattered (broken in 5 places). Once the swelling in my arm went down (A WEEK LATER) the doctors were able to operate on my arm to repair it.
It took a couple months of PT but I regained full use of my hand and arm. Once I completed PT I could start driving again. I wasn't scared to drive and I didn't really have any worries or anxiety about it, which my friends and family thought I would. I didn't even have a problem driving through the intersection where the accident happened. But slowly I started to notice things. If someone is at a stop sign waiting to enter the road I'm driving on, if someone cuts into my lane on the highway really close to me, if for any reason someone's car gets very close to my car (like if they're trying to merge into my lane of stopped traffic) my heart starts racing and my hands start shaking uncontrollably and tingling.
But by far the worst part is the anxiety I feel if the dogs are in the car with me and I approach an intersection, especially one where I can't see that the cross traffic is stopped until I'm in the intersection. Unfortunately my dogs are frequently in the car with me, though they now exclusively sit in the back seat for car rides because I'm worried that if I get into an accident, the airbag in the front seat will go off and kill them. But they're both small (10 and 20 lbs) and they stand up against the door in the back seat and put their noses on the window. And every time I approach an intersection I'm just filled with dread that as I go through the intersection, a car that should be stopped for a red light will drive through the intersection and hit my car. My little dogs with their noses pressed on the window will be killed instantly. And I immediately begin feeling responsible for their deaths and guilty over something hasn't and probably won't happen. Even once we're safely through the intersection the feelings don't go away and they loom over me for the rest of the day.
I also frequently find myself remembering the moment immediately after the impact of the accident. When I'm still screaming and the dogs are on the floor of the front seat, stunned and terrified by the accident and my reaction. And I want to cry because I put them in that position where they could've died.
