The time was 8.30pm. I had left work and gone shopping at a nearby mall and was heading home along I-290 East. There's construction at night along this road, so all traffic is directed to 495 South, which means the three lanes merge to two lanes, which merge to one lane that exits. As I approach the two lanes merging into one, I see stopped traffic in front of me right at the merge. So I pull to a stop behind this full sized van (an airport limo) and next to this guy merging in:
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| Diagram 1: pre-crash |
A few seconds after I was at a full stop, some guy slams into my car going what felt like 50mph. I felt this huge jolt and then all of a sudden everything was really dark, there was this weird chemical smell in the car, things were quiet, and I was hurting. The steering wheel airbag, the driver side airbag, and the driver seat airbag (on the left side of the seat apparently there is an airbag ...) had deployed. No electrical systems in my car were working anymore, not even the cabin lights. My seat back was broken, the inside of my sunroof was pulled back, and my trunk was open. I could also see the hood sticking up, accordion style. I had also lost my glasses.
Here's where the crash occured approximately:
View Crash in a larger map
Here's what I believe his trajectory was (marked in green):
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| Diagram 2: assumed trajectory |
After some time passed (I'm not sure how long; I don't think I was unconscious at any point), I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911. As I was talking to the dispatcher, the state police trooper pulled up from the direction of the work zone. I assume he had been stationed there for the work and heard/saw the crash. I got off the phone with the 911 dispatcher as the state trooper surveyed the scene and asked me if I was alright. I felt a little woozy, definitely in shock, and a bit battered. My left arm had a bunch of scrapes on it that were slowly bleeding and my knees/shins hurt. Also, my forehead had some scrapes on it, but I didn't notice those until a little later.
In an almost comical juxtaposition, as I sat there in utter shock, not sure what to do, thankful to be alive, but also hurting, I could see the driver of the van in front of me get out of the van and start taking pictures of the scene with a disposable camera. No seeing if I was alright, no asking the other cars involved if things were ok, no talking to the state trooper at all, just taking pictures of the damage to his car and my car with a disposable camera. I could hear the little winding noise after each picture. That flabbergasted me almost as much as the accident itself.
A few more troopers arrived shortly thereafter and then the fire department shortly after that. The traffic behind us was quickly routed through the closed off left lane to start it moving again. The state trooper collected my license and registration and had me sit in his backseat to rest. He asked me what happened and I explained to him that I had come to a stop and then was rear ended at high speed by the guy behind me.
The person on my left that was merging in and the van in front of me sustained some damage, but not a whole lot, so after they had given their information to the police, they left.
The ambulance arrived not too long after that and they took the driver out of the car behind me. He was crying, I'm not sure if it was due to pain or what - it didn't seem like he had visible injuries. He had to come through his passenger side door because his driver side door was mangled. Before the ambulance had gotten there, the police had started to question him about what had happened and started searching his car. After he had left in the ambulance on one of those boards with his head strapped down, the police kept searching his car and pulled out a bunch of cartons of cigarettes and I don't know what else.
At this point I asked if I could get some things out of my car. Luckily for me, that morning I had just put my gym bag in my car, just in case I was going to go to the gym or play Ultimate frisbee after work. Also fortunately for me, the gym bag was unharmed in the trunk. I proceeded to grab the most important things I could think of from my car (my work bag, ipod, etc) and put them in my gym bag. However, search as I might, I couldn't find where my glasses had gone. Then I went back over to the state trooper's car and sat there with my gym bag.
A second ambulance arrived for me and the paramedic proceeded to put me in a neck brace and then strap me down to one of those boards and put me on the stretcher and into the ambulance. She was nice enough to remember my gym bag and also ask the state trooper for my license and registration back, which she put in my gym bag for me (since I was obviously a little indisposed). We drove to UMass Memorial Hospital near Worcestor, but further away from Boston and where I live.
Once we got to the hospital, I had to sit through a resident poking my back and asking if it hurt as well as some xrays for my left knee (which was fine), among other things. I could also hear the state troopers questioning the driver of the car that hit me (he was walking around fine when I got to the hospital, although still in a neck brace). They said everything was ok and discharged me a few hours later. Thankfully, Jeffrey was still up when I got to the hospital and was willing to drive out to Worcestor to pick me up. I ended up getting home around 1.30am.
Just yesterday, I went to go pick up the rest of my stuff out of my car, since they told me it was totaled. I snapped a few pictures of it in the daylight:
I ended up finding my glasses and remarkably they were ok. My Google frisbee was ruined, though, as was my Cornell umbrella. It's hard to see in the last picture, but the umbrella was sitting vertically in the trunk and was hit so hard that it actually punctured a hole into the back of the passenger seat. Also, I was mad that all CDs of mine that were in the CD-changer are lost forever now, because there's no way to get them out without ripping out the entire stereo.
