Crash, Bang, Boom
Last night I experienced my first major car wreck. I was traveling on US-59 S right around where it goes over Shepherd at about 10:15 PM (I was returning home after a holiday dinner with my work group). Someone going much faster than me clipped the back-left side of my car, which caused me to careen into the concrete wall lining the edge of the road. My car bounced off the wall and ended up in the second lane of traffic with a scrape on my back bumper and a completely crumpled front end. The car who hit me paused for a moment on the other side of the road and then drove off.
I can describe all this because of the damage I can see on my car and a witness' account. My memory of the event is far less detailed. I never saw the car (truck, van, scooter?) that hit me, either before, during, or after the collision. I have no idea if I spun, or how many times I spun if I did (it appears I spun at least once based on the damage and where I ended up). I recall a brief flash of seeing my car headlights pointed right at the concrete wall and then my next memory is me sitting in my car with the deflated airbag in front of me and a lens missing from my eyeglasses. I was not quite all together yet when I got out of the car and walked toward the shoulder.
Thankfully, a bystander called 911, and two others stopped as well, before the fire engine came. Two tow trucks came, and finally several cop cars. They took down the information they needed, and I tried to stay tuned in while taking stock of my injuries, which amounted to nothing more than a bruised arm and side.
I must say that my experience will Allstate has been very good. I called them last night after I got home (at about 12:00 AM), and they took all my information down efficiently. By this morning, my information was in Enterprise Rental Car company's computer system, so I had a practically paid-for car by 11:30 AM (I'm out of pocket $2/day for up to 30 days). By 3:00 PM, a claims adjuster called me and verified all the details of my claim. That call ended with the promise to have someone go out to my car to assess the damage and to send me a $600 check due to my being injured by an uninsured motorist (I guess all hit-and-run incidents get classified this way). By the people's accounts at the scene, my car seems like it will be a total loss. So when Donna returns from her business trip in Tampa, we'll have to go car shopping to see what lucky car gets to replace my 2006 Saturn Ion.
You can see for yourself, if you want. I went to clean out my car today and I took the video camera with me to give it a video inspection (MOV, 3.0 MB). I also captured some stills from the video.
So I am still in pretty good shape. My left side is still fairly sore, but only when I twist or clench in certain ways. My arm soreness is almost too slight to mention, but I do have some overall aches now, albeit (albethem?) very minor aches.