Hit and Roll

Yesterday at about 12:35 in the afternoon or so, while crossing 11th in downtown Tacoma in a driving rain, I was hit by a car that ran a light. I rolled over the hood and onto the pavement.

The driver, an EMT from the Seattle Fire Department, was lost in Tacoma and distracted. My head was down as I crossed the street. He skidded through the red light, and I didn’t see him until he was about a foot from me.

He made me comfortable and called 911 while I texted and then called Francine, who rushed right down the hill.

I was transported by ambulance to St Joseph hospital with symptoms of shock and possible concussion. I was dizzy and nauseated and had trouble thinking straight. No broken bones, no bleeding. Praise God for that! My Guardian Angel was clearly working overtime.

The guys in the ambulance were great. We joked and laughed most of the trip.

Once we were at ER, I was given a quick assessment, and put in a wheelchair. We were shunted off to a waiting room. Where we waited. And waited.

Meanwhile, the pain in my neck was blossoming into a full-blown migraine. Despite asking for Excedrin – which in my experience is the only thing that can head these things off – we were given neither painkillers or ice. I was provided with a warm blanket and a mask for my eyes, and so bundled up and blinded, I collapsed into a roughly three or four hour migraine.

When it passed, my brain was ticking along like a machine on overdrive. This often happens after I get one of these shorter migraines – I briefly become hyper-focused, and my thought process moves extremely quickly and makes connections that normally I have to work hard at.

(I once composed a fully-formed Shakespearean sonnet in this state. I wrote it off the top of my head with no editing, and it scanned and rhymed perfectly. It was amazing. If only I didn’t have to go through the migraine phase first.)

This was when I got onto Facebook to let my friends know what had happened, and that I was OK. Francine had earlier texted family to put them in the loop.

I am extremely grateful for the outpouring of prayers and well-wishes I received. Many days I think that the frustration and anger I see on social media outweighs its good, but at that moment I was happy to have it available.

After roughly seven hours in the ER waiting room, I finally got to see a doctor. He was great. The nurse that followed was similarly competent and comforting.

I finally got some ice and some painkillers.

I had my first CAT scan, which came out clean, although I do have a knot of muscle tensed up on my neck near my spine.

The nurse told me to expect 72 hours or so of pain, and indeed, this morning my entire body feels like one giant bruise.

The care I received in the hospital was excellent, when I finally got some. Sitting in a waiting room for seven hours after being hit by a car without so much as an aspirin or ice? That’s not optimal, and if that’s the norm for ERs in the United States, we need to give this a hard look and fix it.

We spent eight hours at St. Joseph Hospital yesterday.