fallen trees, smashed cars, and damaged friends

smashed car

Above is a digital rendering of our recently flattened automobile.

On Thursday, Tish and I went to the Brickstore with Summer to celebrate her last day of work at her horrible job with her chauvinistic boss. We drank good beer, made good toasts, and then returned to pack up to go to Texas the next day with Summer in our back seat. But as we were driving back from the bar, a massive storm blew up, with fierce winds and impenetrable sheets of rain.

We pulled in our driveway just as the storm was picking up, and small twigs began to pelt our car. Then slightly larger sticks began to fall, making louder sounds. Then branches began to fall, making alarmingly loud clunks as they struck our car. Frightened, I decided to back the car out of the driveway to avoid having my car destroyed by the falling limbs. But as I backed up, a massive branch fell with a sickening thud inches from the front bumper of my car, causing me to swear and slam on my brakes. Heartbeats later, the sky was illuminated by a lightning flash, and a crashing noise caused me to turn my head quickly to the left as the 50-100 year old Sweetgum tree in our front yard fell toward us, suffused in the eerie blue-white glow of the lightning strike. As the tree smashed into the back end of the car with the sounds of metallic crunching and shattering glass, all of us screamed in terror as our heads hit the roof (or the roof hit our heads).

After an initial survey of my body, I concluded that nothing was immediately wrong with me, though I was conscious of some dull pain in the back of my neck. I looked over at Tish, who, though terrified, appeared to be conscious and mobile. Finally, I looked back at Summer, who was just beginning to scream. It was, to put it simply, my worst nightmare. One of my best friends was basically prostrate in the crushed back end of my smashed-up car, holding her head in her hands, screaming in terror, her mouth full of blood. She screamed, "Get me out of this car, I need to get of the car!" We tried all of the doors, but the tree had so demolished the car that the frame was bent and the doors would no longer open. We were trapped in the car until someone could rescue us.

We calmed Summer down somewhat, but as she was injured and in major shock, she wasn't anything close to coherent. She whimpered as I told her to get down and stroked her hand. She repeated that her teeth hurt and that she could not feel her left arm. Tish quickly became all business (for which I am eternally grateful and of which I am incredibly proud), located a cell phone and called 911, telling the officer that a tree had just hit our car and that we were trapped. The rain continued to come down in buckets, now seeping into the car through the sunroof and the windows, which were no longer flush with the doors and roof, soaking us to the bone.

We sat in the car waiting to be rescued for what seemed like hours. Elizabeth, Bobbi Jo and Woody (our roommates) were all standing near the car desperately attempting to free us and determine if we were conscious. But the paramedics did eventually come, telling us to cover our eyes as they smashed out the window, and pulled us out of the broken window one by one. Dazed and shaken, we were escorted inside 121 Wilton, where we were covered with blankets, and tried to digest what had just happened to us.

Frighteningly, Summer could not remember what had happened from when we left the Brickstore until she was inside the house. Her mouth was still filled with blood and she was in terrible pain. The paramedics put us all on backboards with C-Collars and transported us out of the house and into the ambulance in the midst of the pouring rain. The rain seeped through my clothes and soaked me to the bone as my eyes were dazzled by the flashing lights and my ears assaulted by the sounds of sirens and CB radios.

Once inside the ambulance (mercifully, in the same one as my wife), we had a relatively uneventful and even pleasant trip to Dekalb Medical Hospital (which, due to the force of the storm, had lost power as well) with our paramedic Tim, who had been an EMT for 17 years and had just begun to hate his job on account of a change in hours. We thanked him profusely for the rescue and I silently prayed that his job situation would improve.

Once inside Dekalb Medical, however, the situation worsened. My wife was discharged pretty quickly, since she complained of only minor pain and didn't exhibit any of the symptoms associated with the spinal fractures. Summer and I, having complained of pain, were X-rayed and dismissed at around 5 a.m. While I felt pretty good at the time, it was obvious that something was dreadfully wrong with Summer. She was shaky, she had fainted as the technician stood her up to take x-rays, she had vomited twice, and now that the doctor had cursorily perused her x-rays and pronounced her whole and hale, she was being dismissed summarily despite her alarming symptoms. The funny thing was, Bobbi Jo and Elizabeth had been giving a sheet entitled "Caring for Head Injury Victims," which stated that they were to bring Summer back to the ER if she exhibited the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, or fainting. Er, hadn't she just been dismissed with exactly those symptoms?

The next morning, Summer passed out in the bathroom and vomited again. Her roommates laid her out on the couch in the front room and she dozed uneasily, in considerable pain. Shortly after 11 a.m., an officer showed up at our house and asked for Summer. He said that he was performing a "wellness check," and when Summer said she was "as well as could be expected under the circumstances," he wished her well and was on his way. This incident seemed a little curious, so Bobbi Jo called the Bellsouth voice mail service via her cell phone (mind you, we didn't have power or phone service at this point) and found that the hospital had called several times, that the radiologist had looked at the x-rays and immediately noticed that something was wrong, that she must return to the hospital immediately for more testing.

Bobbi Jo called the hospital and the ER doctor tersely and rudely told her that they had been trying to reach them all morning, that she had to get into her car and carry Summer over there. Bobbi Jo, astonished, reminded the doctor that all of our cars had either been demolished by trees or were lying under live power lines, to which the doctor responded mercilessly that she should call a cab. Thankfully, our landlord was around to carry Summer to the hospital.

Once there, it was pretty clear that something was wrong with Summer, and the new x-rays and CAT scan confirmed it. She had a fracture in her C-6 vertebrae with bone shards impinging on an artery carrying blood to the brain and causing a blood clot in it. The hospital stated that they it was transferring Summer to Grady because "they had an excellent trauma unit" and because "there was no neurosurgeon on duty" at Dekalb. Of course, we later found out that there was, in fact, a neurosurgeon on duty at Dekalb, but because Summer had been so ill-treated there at first, no doctor wanted to see her for fear of a lawsuit (can I hear an "Amen" for tort reform?).

So that's where we are now. Summer is currently at Grady in the Intensive Care Unit. At first, they didn't have a room for her in the ICU, so she was in the Red Zone in the Emergency Room. How many of you have been to the ER at Grady? It's like being in a Third World country. As I passed through security (yeah, they have a security check-bad sign at a hospital), two nurses were carting by a man who obviously had several gun shot wounds to the chest and was bleeding profusely through his shirt in the back. There was blood on several of the seats in the waiting room (which incidently, does a really good impersonation of a Greyhound bus terminal). The place smelled a great deal like urine and foul body odor. In the actual ER, beds lined the walls, occupied by prison inmates, homeless people, and others unfortunate enough to wind up in the Grady ER. This is what happens in a public hospital.

Some of the best stories have come from Summer's mom, who drove up soon after Summer was diagnosed with the fracture. For instance, when she went to the woman's bathroom at the ER, there was a man standing in front of the mirror wearing only a long t-shirt. He was raising this t-shirt and exposing himself to the mirror while making strange bleating noises. She ran out of the bathroom, and he followed soon after, making his way back to his seat (mind you, still clothed only in the t-shirt) as though nothing had happened.

Summer has been stable for a couple of days, though there was a scary incident today when they attempted to move her downstairs to a normal room. We don't really know what's going to happen to her, so we really do covet everyone's prayers for her.