The Accident

The Accident

It was a pretty average day for Spring Break, I’d worked from home that morning then was out doing work errands all afternoon. I was planning to work late at my office that night so that I could take the next day off. He was taking the day off for his birthday and we were going to take the kids on the train into the city. Things felt good, we were all looking forward to this, we needed more days like this in our lives. We had spoken briefly that afternoon and he knew I wouldn’t be home so had said he’d definitely leave work on time and get home to the kids well before they needed dinner. This was the norm. When my daughter called at 7:30 PM to ask if I’d order pizza because they were getting hungry my reaction was annoyance, “tell dad, he’s the adult at home”, when she said “he never came home” I knew without a doubt something was wrong. He may be guilty of many things but him simply not coming home and not calling just doesn’t happen. If something had happened at work he would have let me know. I texted his close friend he works with to see if he was with him. No. I called work to see when he’d left. Around 3:30. No one had heard from him since. Everyone there is now trying to call him, no answer. I gathered my things and went home, clueless as to what to do next. His phone was older and wasn’t fully functional so there was nothing location-wise turned on and he doesn’t use any social media. Finding him via his phone that night proved to be impossible. His friend set out to drive the route he takes from work to home to see if he saw his car. Nothing. He then went back to search side streets for any signs of him. Nothing. In the meantime I’m inwardly panicking but playing normal to keep the kids from worrying, a mode of existence that would become my norm for the next few weeks. By this time more people were driving around, someone was calling local hospitals between home and work, and others trying to find ways to locate him online. It occurred to me to check his tolltag account where I saw that he’d gotten onto the highway at his normal entrance but had never gotten off. Something had happened on that road. When I think about this now I cannot imagine why my dumbass did not simply google “accident & highway name”. Had I done that the ordeal of finding him could have ended hours earlier. Instead I called the police who then came to my house (well over an hour after I’d called). I showed them the tolltag history thinking they’d use that information in their fancy forensic software to find him. Nope. Their approach to the whole situation was “we can put out a missing persons report ma’am but if we were to find him we can’t make him come home”. They also put out a BOLO and told me to let the police know if we found him so he could be taken off the missing persons list. They were no help at all. My sister had come over earlier to help. We felt like we were out of options and decided to call hospitals again. After calling a few on the map I remembered that people in serious accidents are taken to the county hospital that has the high level trauma center. It was our only hope at this point. She called. He was there!!! I felt instant relief that immediately turned to a panic over whether or not he was alive, or would he live. They were willing to speak with me because they had my name and number in their system because he had given it to them. Why did no one call me hours ago? We’ll never know. After about half an hour of back and forth they were able to put him on the phone to talk to me. All he said was “I was in an accident, I’m in a bad way”. I knew I needed to lay eyes on him to see how badly hurt he was. I called a good friend who knew what was happening and had offered to help to come stay with the kids and my sister and I drove to the hospital some time after midnight. It took a while to get through security because he had only been there a few hours and I wasn’t yet on the list of approved visitors and it was after visiting hours. They finally let me in after talking to the nurses station about the situation. Luckily the trauma team came by to check on him while I was there and were able to explain what all was broken and what the immediate treatment would be. Over the first 48 hours he had 2 surgeries to fix some badly broken bones. Bones can heal, I was just grateful for no head or spinal injuries. The following week brought a snowball of serious complications, all results of the trauma to his body. It was a scary few weeks that brought an onslaught of conflicting emotions. Daily I cried, heartbroken for my children and the fear and uncertainty they felt, terrified about the complete unknown of the future, angry that we were in this place, selfishly angry about the weight of daily responsibility the accident had brought, heartbroken all over again about reality of our relationship, and grateful things weren’t worse. Feeling all of the emotions alone was draining. During this time we found ourselves having some of the most raw and honest conversations that we’d ever had. In some ways it was almost a special time. He spent a month in the hospital, then 2 weeks in a rehab hospital. He’s at home now but still facing a long recovery. The doctors have been honest about the long term repercussions of everything. It will take about a year before we know if he’ll need further surgeries and the complications will have to be treated for the rest of his life. After several weeks in a hellscape of insurance red tape he started the physical therapy he needs if he’s going to walk, drive, or generally have a normal life again. I realize daily he’s lucky to be alive but this emotional rollercoaster has been exhausting.