Scott's Accident
She lives about an hour and half from me so I waited until traffic died down in Atlanta (because I have to drive through there) before making my trek back home. I sent Scott a text message that I was leaving before I pulled out of her driveway. I didn't hear back but that wasn't unusual. I figured he was at the gym or something. I always put my phone in the holder on my dash while driving so that I am not tempted by it and because I usually have Waze (the traffic/directions app) pulled up while driving. About 10 minutes after leaving her house Scott called me. He said "You need to come home I've been hit" and then an officer got on the phone. I was shocked. I didn't know what to do. I felt like I was going to throw up in my car. Was this a joke? It couldn't be a joke because I spoke to an officer. The officer told me that Scott was on his road bike and was hit by a truck. He flipped over his bike and into a ditch. The officer told me that he had a hurt leg and told me to drive safely home. I wasn't even in the right frame of mind to ask any other questions. How injured was his leg? Were there any other injuries? Where were they taking him? I immediately called my dad and he couldn't understand anything I was saying for the first few minutes. Finally he made out that Scott was hit and said he was on his way to our house. That drive home was the longest of my life. I seriously had no idea what to think. Was he okay? Was he in a lot of pain? Would he be able to do the things he loves again (lift weights, hiking, biking, skiing)?
I made it to the hospital, saw my parents and lost it. I've never seen Scott in a hospital bed before (I don't think he's been to the hospital since he was a kid). I'm used to seeing him in the gym. Not a hospital bed. After a few hours in the hospital we were told there were no broken bones! He has injuries on his back, both arms/elbows, and his left foot is really bruised and swollen. I still cannot believe that he was hit by a car while on his bike. It's something that I feared every single time he left the house but also thought it would "never happen to us".
I posted a little bit about this on Facebook and I'm not going to go into everything from the accident but you always hear that life is short and things can change in an instant and that is so true! I could have lost Scott. That still scares me. Just know that each and every time you get in your car, that it is a huge responsibility. We all take it for granted because it's just such a normal part of life now but try to start taking it more seriously (myself included). Get rid of all distractions - emails, text, phone calls, etc. Nothing is worth the chance of hurting yourself or someone else. With the nicer fall weather coming many people will be out walking, jogging, and biking. Pam sent me an article where two ladies were killed while running on a sidewalk. A truck hit them on Saturday. On a sidewalk. Their third friend was airlifted to the hospital. Again, I don't know the circumstances of that accident either but we can all do a better job of removing all distractions while driving.
Scott is still sore but is healing. We went to the doctor this morning and they took more x-rays to make sure that he didn't have any broken ribs (they didn't do that at the hospital for some reason). It's a good thing he is strong or I think he would have been hurt even worse! Now we are having to "play it by ear" about our hiking trip that we were supposed to leave for on Saturday. We've been planning this trip for a year and now we will probably have to cut a lot of our hikes short or even not do them because of this accident. It's amazing how one turn of events can have such a huge impact on so many things!
It's fascinating to me how animals know that something is wrong! One of our cats, Rambo, wouldn't leave Scott at all on Thursday!