Another Car Accident: One Hit After Another...Literally...

Monday, I fell asleep at 6 am. 2 hours later, I get awoken by my dad yelling at me. Apparently, when my uncle was walking my cousin to school, they got fucking ran over by a car. The elementary school is just a 10 minute walk from the house. As my dad is laying all this out, I’m still in dreamland. I heard it but wasn’t comprehending anything. I snapped out of it pretty quickly once he says my cousin fell, chipped her tooth, and was bleeding profusely from her mouth. It wasn’t a hit and run, and the passerby’s had already called the police.

I spring out of bed and start gathering their medical ID cards knowing for a fact that an ER was inevitable. I guess my dad was a bit impatient and left without me. The cards were packed away in my mom’s room and I was trying to find them as fast as I could with my barely conscious mind. Finding it in their manila medical folder mixed with all sorts of other documents was the same as trying to find a needle in a haystack. Fumbling everywhere, I give up and just stuff both of the folders in my tote bag and grab my car keys. As awake as I could be, I was still in a daze. I was driving but the world still didn’t even look real. I got to a stop sign and was about to make my normal left turn, but when looking both ways, I noticed on the right, a blaring fire truck was just leaving the scene of the crime. Ambulance and police cars surrounded that area and a whole sea of people were gathered over. I scurry to park my car at Smartie’s house where it was a bit closer and run out hoping to God that this wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

The police are the first to greet me and I take a glance at the inside of the ambulance. My uncle is on the stretcher and makes eye contact with me. His face breaks into a relieved smile and calls out to my cousin (which I presume is deeper inside the ambulance) of my arrival. My dad has yet to appear. Interesting since he left the house first. I try talking to the female cop first but my lack of sleep gets the better of me, “I’m the people’s that's got hit’s guardian.”

“…What?” I don’t blame her. Even to me in that state of mind knew that it sounded stupid the moment it left my mouth.

I straight up just point to the ambulance and say, “I’m their guardian.” She catches on and calls over another (male) officer. He lays out (most) of the details for me. The uncle and cousin were walking at the cross walk, the driver said the sun was blinding him so he drove straight through, and hit them head on. At this point, my dad has showed up and just stands to the side. Although by now, half of this interaction has gone by, I get the good idea to secretly record this conversation on my phone, knowing that I might forget most of what was said. I only get the last minute and a half, but oh well better than nothing. The police have been trying to get more details out of my family, but due to my uncle’s nonexistent English vocabulary and my cousin’s kindergarten English speaking-level, it has been difficult to get anything out of them. The police double check all of the information with me and tell me I could meet those 2 at the hospital nearby. Oh, and the cherry on top, the driver has no car insurance. The cop asks if I have any questions and this is where I screwed up. I should’ve asked if I could press charges or at least ask for the driver’s information, but at the moment I really, genuinely was still so tired and was more prioritized on the other two’s conditions. The officer gave me his card with the case number and sends me on my way.

As I’m turning around to head back to the cars and fill in my dad with this information, we get stopped by 2 older ladies. They heard me cussing under my breath and asked me if everything was alright. I introduced myself as the kid’s cousin and give them a debrief of everything. A small light pops in my head, “Were both of you here when it happened? Did you see it?” But, apparently not. They were the 2 Vice Principles of the school. Apparently right after the crash, some parents ran into the office and screamed out what happened. Both of them came running out to check on the accident. They were able to get there a bit earlier, so they did tell me that my cousin was bleeding quite a bit and has it dripping down on her jacket and jeans. My dad and I hastily say our goodbyes and explain that we want to meet the other 2 at the hospital pronto.

My dad takes his car back home and so do I. The weather had gotten colder nowadays and the whole time I was out there in just a t-shirt, my skin had began pricking up and feeling numb. We both grab our jackets and some bottled waters before driving to the hospital together. When we got there, the nurse made us wait outside for an extra while with something about them not being in the system yet. When the security guard does show me inside, I meet with my uncle first. He’s in the most pain and the nurses are having a whirlwind trying to understand what he’s saying. I translate that his knees, wrist, and head are hurting. They take note of it and say they’ll pass along the message to the doctor. After acting as an impromptu translator, they take me into a separate room where my cousin was staying at. She was hooked up with wires all taped on her body (most of them just to capture her heart rate). She had bruising on her knees, elbows, left eye, had a chipped tooth, and had her chin split open. The split wasn’t too deep that it had to be stitched up, but enough that they kinda just glued it back together. I was able to stay with her a while when she was crying in bed out of shock, but then later had to go back outside to her dad for more translations.

He was getting moved to another room for x-rays and the nurse asked me to help translate so he can get in the correct positions per each photo. When he took off his jeans, that’s when I saw there was a huge bloody gash on his thigh. The nurses proceeded with the x-rays. My uncle said it hurt so bad every time they made him switch positions. It was quickly done, and I was led back to where my cousin was. The remaining time at the hospital was full of waiting by my cousin’s side, holding her hand, and just trying to calm her down. The nurses said her heart rate kept spiking when I was gone and reached up to a 150 bpm heart rate even though she’s just lying on the bed. She said she kept worrying about her dad and didn’t like being separated from him. After about an hour of supervising her heart rate, it had gone down to between 115-130 BPM and she was discharged. I hadn’t known this at the time, but I believed that during the time I was waiting outside, the nurses had taken her to get x-rays and that’s why I wasn’t allowed in until 45 minutes later. It wasn’t until yesterday (Wednesday) that I’d asked her about it and she said all they did was clean up the blood and told her rest. Right now (Thursday) we’re in the middle of trying to go back the the ER to get both her and her dad full body scans since they took pretty hard hits to the ground. Anyways, we went over to where her dad was and waited till he was discharged as well. The results of his wrist and knee x-rays had came back and all looked fine. I asked them if they had taken a CT scan of his head since he had fallen back and hit his head on the pavement and was complaining about the pain, but the nurse relayed that the doctor said it was probably just a bruise and didn’t end up scanning his head. To me then, it just seemed a bit odd, but to me now, I should’ve fought for that CT scan harder.

Anyways, he gets discharged about 30 minutes later and I end up having to wheelchair him back to my car since he really can’t walk. As I’m going back to the hospital to return the wheelchair, I see a man walking towards me with a pink backpack slung over his shoulder. Peculiar color choice, but it’s not my business to judge. I pass by him and he informs me that he was actually one of the EMTs on the ambulance from this morning. Apparently, they told my cousin to leave her backpack in the ambulance and they would pass it over to the hospital staff, but they forgot. Once they picked up their next patient, they noticed the bag and realized their mistake. We made a switch with the backpack and wheelchair and we both went our separate ways.

After getting home, I still had to get to school because I had a meeting with Club President in a few hours regard the end-of-the-semester Awards Ceremony I was in charge of, so as much as I didn’t want to, I still had to haul my ass back around. On campus, I was at least able to get some coffee in me. Class itself was another guest speaker that just made me feel even sleepier.

On my way home for the night, I decided to stop by the scene of the accident to try and find my cousin’s tooth. There’s nothing we could do with it, but something just compelled me to stop by. Once I got off my car and turned on my phone’s flashlight, a middle aged man called out to me, “Did you hear about what happened this morning? A little girl and her dad got hit by a car when they were crossing the crosswalk.” I informed him I was her cousin and he said, “I thought you seemed familiar from this morning.” Makes sense. I was too worried for the family that I didn’t even notice those around me.

This man was like a god sent from heaven. Apparently, he was the man that carried my cousin off the middle of the street. His house was right in front of the accident, and he was outside working in his garage and saw everything unfold. Even when the scene unfolded and after calling the ambulances, he went around the surrounding homes to ask for their home security camera footage and handed it to the police. It seemed a bit odd to me that this was how I had to find out that there was video evidence and that the police kept quiet about it from me when I came. A good number of houses had some and he sent the one with the best angle and quality to me. In the video, it showed a four-way intersection all with stop signs: my uncle and cousin got to the cross walk, a red car was mid turning left where they were trying to cross, they decide to let that car pass, a silver car appears after, my uncle and cousin believe that car will stop for them (since they also have a stop sign), they begin to cross, the car doesn’t see them (driver said the sunlight blinded him), and drives straight through them when my uncle and cousin were already halfway across the crosswalk. The uncle took the majority of the hit and got carried with the car. Luckily, he was able to push the kid out of the way. My uncle kept telling me that if he didn’t do that, a small kid like her would’ve died due to the car’s impact. Even though it was a school zone, the car looked to be going well over the posted speed limit, and didn’t even make a full stop at the line. The car didn’t immediately hit the brakes and carried my uncle a good few yards. Because my cousin was pushed out of the way, that’s how she fell face first, split her chin open, chipped her tooth, and got a bruise on her eye. The car was level to where the uncle’s knees are so that’s why it’s hurting so much.

I updated the man that the kid and her dad are alright with nothing life threatening for now, but I equally inform him that the driver had no insurance. He tells me more stuff from what happened after I left. After learning the man had no insurance, the police just gave him a ticket and let him go. Sure my blood is boiling, but that was almost 14 hours ago. What could I have done now that night? He also joins me in searching for my cousin’s teeth but we give up on this lost cause. I thank him for his help both of that morning and now, and rush back home to relay the new information.

TLDR: first COVID, now this. My cousin and uncle almost died cause of some idiot.