Crunch, Pop, Hiss

Ah, snow.

It’s so peaceful and pretty. Until this happens…

“Hang on!” My husband said.

Crunch. Pop. Hiss. And then the smoke and that awful smell. We slid into a tree. My eyes were squeezed shut the whole time. I chipped my tooth a tiny bit from clenching my teeth during impact. I opened my eyes and spun around to check on the kids. Cassie was crying and saying her chest hurt. Logan was OK and demanding we “GET OUT OF THE CAR!” because he thought it was on fire. Turns out the smoke and smell were from the airbags.

We all got out and determined that no one was hurt. Paul was on the phone already and a neighbor drove up behind us. A police car was there within a minute. Our neighbor took Cassie and me back to our house (this all happened on our road), but Logan refused to get back in a car. He stayed with Paul while he arranged the tow truck and answered questions for the police report.

Back at the house, I felt a lot of pain in my chest and it hurt to breathe in. Paul called. “There’s an ambulance here. Are you OK?”

“I don’t know. My chest hurts.” I had always thought the pain/soreness from the seatbelt and airbag would come later. It worried me that it hurt to breathe in. The EMTs came up to the house and checked me out. My vitals were good, lungs sounded fine, not dizzy, no blue-ish bruising that might indicate internal bleeding. I declined ambulance service to the hospital and noted their instructions of what to look out for: fever, dizziness, nausea.

For the rest of the night we dosed on pain relievers and tried to relax. Logan kept saying “I can’t believe we got in a car accident,” and replaying the crash, wondering aloud what we might have done differently. Again and again I told him how lucky we are. If we hit the tree at any other angle (other than head-on), our injuries could have been substantial.

Today the kids seem back to normal. After all, there’s about 5 inches of snow available to make snowballs with.

Tagged as: family