4 car collision. Car totaled and not at fault

Hello, my name is Pam and I’m in a very bad place. I’m going to miss 6-10 weeks of work because of a four car pileup. I was not the person who caused this. I will have ZERO income.

On August 5, 2021 I was waiting at a red light in Casselberry, Florida. I was second in line at the light behind a woman driving a Chevy Trailblazer. Behind me was a man driving a late model Toyota Rav 4. I was in a 2005 Pontiac G6.

I momentarily looked down while idling at the light when a loud, powerful, bam happened as the Rav 4 shoved into the rear of my car. My car lurched into the Trailblazer with another loud crunch.

Simultaneously, I got tossed around in my seat, right to left. I was wearing my seatbelt. I took photos of the bruise that took several days to appear.

My right shoulder was shoved into something hard enough to cause a fracture and tear my rotator cuff.

I didn’t know all that for sure until two trips to the ER happened over 8/5-6.

After the impact and dropping a stream of F-bombs and thinking, oh, my God, this is a car accident, I took stock of my situation and realized I survived, but this was bad.

Everything happened in seconds. After realizing I was alive and seemed to be ok, I righted myself in my seat and discovered my seat was perversely bent and pushed back.

Then the driver in front exited her car and went from cat to car asking if each of us was ok. Her car sustained the least amount of damage. She was a rock, and I’m grateful for all her assistance.

I thanked God that I was able to stand and breathe.  Once I realized I was ambulatory, I grabbed my phone and began taking photos. Miraculously, it was functional.

Someone had already called 911 and I heard sirens, lots of sirens. I think three agencies responded: Florida Highway Patrol, Seminole County Sheriffs, and the lead agency, Casselberry Police.

It was too early to really be aware of all my injuries. Endorphins pump and cover much of the pain and discomfort. Very often you don’t feel anything wrong until the next day.

While taking photos, I tried to judge if anything was wrong with my body. It was difficult to tell. My left calf started to spasm and my muscles felt kind of tight, but, I was extremely lucky.

We later learned the driver was unconscious at the wheel and this is why there were no squealing tires or braking sounds. We still don’t know if it was a medical emergency or a DUI. It’s because of my injuries the police are going to be able to retrieve his blood test results from whatever hospital he was taken to. He wasn’t in the one I ended up going to.

The cops and EMT’s did their rounds checking for ID’s, insurance and injuries. At first my issues seemed to be only contusions, but I was very worried about what might have happened to my artificial left knee. I had it replaced in December 2019.

I had taken stock of what was left of my car; it was completely totaled. The Rav 4 behind me looked much the same. It’s when I saw the deployed airbags hanging in the breeze in the Rav 4 that I realized NO AIRBAGS in my car deployed. That’s the first time I cried because I was hit with just how damn lucky I was to be standing and breathing.

I‘d at fIrst declined an ambulance trip to the hospital. I thought I would wait to see how I felt on Friday. Then it hit me that I wasn’t going to have a ride to ANYWHERE. The sun was setting when the EMT’s made a second round of enquirIes about trips to the hospital. I decided I should go. I’m glad I did. It was my first, and hopefully, last ambulance ride. Everytime the ambulance jerked to a stop it felt and sounded just like the impacts to my car. I was taken to AdventHealth in Altamonte Springs. I was there hours, but not as long as I was the next day.

They took x-rays, and at fIrst, it looked like I only had contusions. I was discharged and had no way home-the hospital didn’t provide the taxi vouchers that the EMT’s told me it would. I burst into tears. It was about 11:30 pm. I was exhausted, angry, confused, terrified about how I was hoing to pay my bills, and get to my other, already in progress, medical treatments and now, someone was telling me I had no ride home. Eventually, the ER doctor returned to little exam room and told me he got with the social services person in the hospital and they made an exception and got me a cab.

I was sitting In the waiting area of the ER wondering how I would get through all this shit when my phone rang. It was one of the Casselberry cops saying that he still needed to interview me. “I’m stuck at the hospital. I have no way home. The woman cop never brought me my license, insurance card and registration like she said she would.” “That ‘s ok. I will get them, bring them to you. I can interveiw you and then drive you home.” Another round of tears came out, and I saId, “Thank you, because my roommate’s car has had two flat tires for over a month, and are both broke.” 

I finally got ahold of the cab company and canceled so the taxi driver wouldn’t waste his time or fuel.

So, the officer arrived and he interviewed me while we leaned on the hood of his Ford Explorer. He gave me my things and drove me home. He was very nice. He explained that because of the serious injuries (the causal driver being unconsious) there would be two investigstions: traffic and criminal. There would be two detectives.

I was a ball of raw nerves by the time i got home. I hadn‘t eaten in about ten hours-I am hypoglicemic, so that wasn’t good-and I wanted a hot shower.

I’d realized I was startIng to feel pain. At 4:30 am the x-ray department called and told me I needed to return to the hospital at my earliest convience because another tech looked at my images and found a fracture. They wanted me to have a CT scan or MRI. This brought another round of tears cause I knew it woukd cost me at least $30 to make that round trip via Lyft or Uber. So, after a few hours of horrible sleep, I returned for another nine hour stint at the ER.

I had a weird kind of puncture fracture which, thankfully, did not require surgery. A week later, the orthopedic the hospital referred me to described my fracture as being similar to the cracks made when you tap a hard boiled egg to crack it open. 

They put my right arm in a sling, gave me three prescriptions: methylprednisone, naproxen (the hospital grade Aleve), some Oxy, and I got a referral to an orthopedic. I finally got home after midnight.

While I waited in the ER to be seen on the second ER trip,  I got a call back from the attorney’s office I texted the night before. At least I was going to have representation.

I’ve seen the orthopedic. In addition to the fracture, I have a small tear in my rotator cuff. I have to get physical therapy three times a week. How the hell am I going to get there? The doctor told me some agencies will send a physical therapist to my house. He gave me 3-4 pages of rehab connections. Today, I began tracking one down.

I am still waiting to hear about getting a rental car. My policy with State Farm didn’t have collision-couldn’t afford it-so no rental car from them. I did manage to learn the causal driver does have insurance. I don’t even know his condition. The night of the accident, the Casselberry cop who interviewed me said that he was unconscious, but stable. Just a few days ago I learned that the police have to use my proof of broken bones to get a subpoena from a judge to get to the guy’s blood test results so they can determine if they have to charge him with a DUI.

There is so much more to this story, such as, how this accident so badly screws up the three other medical treatments that were in process before this all happened. I had four cancer scares. Just today I had stitches removed from where my dermatologist cut out a squamous cell carcinoma. In January of this year I had four doctors; by the end of February, I had seven. Counting the accident orthopedic, I now have eight. My regular orthopedic does not deal with auto injuries. That’s not uncommon and I still love him. He’s awesome. But, the receptionist at his office on that Friday was rude. That’s totally unlike them.

I will return with more to my story-and try to upload the photos I tried to insert here. Not sure if my phone is as exhausted as I am or it’s this site that’s acting up.

In an update below I made a mistake typing in my blog site. I tried edited the update. There is no edit button for that.

My blog site is:

sykeology219.com