Sequel to “A Freak Accident”: The Real Aftermath -- by Anne Shier

My name is Elle McNealy. In the spring of 2000 I was involved in a horrible car accident that nearly cost me my life and that of another woman whose car I had hit. This is the story of what happened to me in the real aftermath several years later, as a direct result of this accident.

        On one of the busiest streets in Scarborough, in the middle of rush hour, I actually passed out at the wheel of my car and drove right off the road. A freaky part was that it was a farmer’s field into which I drove; it could so easily have been a tree or a hydro pole or even a deep ditch. While driving across this field, I was suddenly startled into semi-consciousness because of the rough terrain, but I was still moving at close to 60 kph and only half-conscious. At that moment, I knew I was likely to hit something—a house, a tree or worse, someone walking along—and that absolutely terrified me! If one can imagine going almost full-tilt in a car while driving it yet not being very aware of one’s surroundings, this was my situation at this moment. I was positive my life was now being measured in seconds. I was going to be lucky if I survived this or didn’t kill someone or both. But I guess on that day in April 2000, someone high above was looking out for me because I didn’t die or kill anyone. But what I did was hit another person’s car in a head-on collision, all because I thought it was a good idea to try and get back onto a very busy road!

While sitting in the car, trapped there by the caved-in driver door and a crunched-up steering column, I was numb from the neck down; I couldn’t feel anything. There was absolutely no sense of pain or of being injured, no sensation that I can recall. After a while, I felt like I was fading fast. Without the firefighters to free me from the wreckage, and the EMS guys to give me emergency first aid, I still don’t think that I would have made it. They also gave me some kind of painkiller after I was pulled from the wreckage because the pain that I began to experience then was excruciating and like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I imagined that the other driver was in the same bad way as me. Then the paramedics had us airlifted to the hospital, but by that time I was totally out of it. To this day I have no memory of that trip to Sunnybrook Hospital. All I remember after the helicopter picked us up was waking up in the emergency department, confused.

The trauma of this car accident resulted from the two vehicles colliding—each going 60 kph in opposite directions. This resulted in a crash that happened at about 120 kph. A crash at even a much slower speed can kill a person. That crash could have killed us both easily. While I was glad to be alive at the crash site, I was equally glad later on upon learning that I had not killed the other driver. I also remember praying to God while trapped in my car, begging for forgiveness for what I had just done. I was so sorry for everything that was wrong now, but I wasn’t ready to die just yet. My young son still needed me and I needed him; he was really the only immediate family I could count on.

If it were only my immediate family that I was concerned about leaving behind, it would have been so much easier to deal with the trauma of this horrific car crash that I had inadvertently caused. I certainly didn’t mean to cause the crash; I would never intentionally cause harm to anyone, least of all myself. But I had to learn how to forgive myself before I could realistically expect anyone else in my life to forgive me. In fact, I needed to forgive myself, which I thought would help other family members to forgive me as well. I didn’t realize at the time that some people will never forgive you, no matter what. These people were the ones who had so far appeared to be so caring, loving and kind to me—my parents, for example. You’d expect, as I did, that your parents will always love you no matter what happens in your life, even if it is your own damn fault! As I was about to find out, such things do not always happen that way.

When my mother, Elaina, and my stepfather, Rick, first came to visit me at Sunnybrook Hospital, I was really glad to see them. It showed me that those who loved me the most were genuinely concerned about me, glad I had survived the crash and even gladder that I had not killed anyone else. They seemed to mirror my own feelings. While I sat in my wheelchair (since I couldn’t walk), we chatted casually together for about half an hour until, all of a sudden, I started to get really tired. I think that the reason for my sudden fatigue was the weakness that was now in my legs after my knees had been jammed full-throttle into my car’s dashboard upon impact with the other car. It felt like all the fluid in my body was now flowing into my legs and there wasn’t enough left for my vital organs. I desperately needed to lie down and rest, so I bade them a fond good-bye and asked them to come back in a few days when I would probably feel better.

Unfortunately, they seemed in no rush to come back and see me. I wondered about that. Did they think I was going to just “jump out of bed” and resume my life as if this horrible accident had never happened? I couldn’t walk; I was too weak to stand or walk and, besides, I needed operations to fix my deeply slashed left knee, my badly broken ankle and crushed right ring finger. My wounded knee had already been stapled shut, but the operations on my broken ankle and right hand would not happen for another few days. Surgeons didn’t seem to want to work on the weekends, and today was a Saturday. My parents’ attitude seemed quite strange; I didn’t really know what to make of their standoffish behaviour. I thought that maybe other family members would also come and see me soon, but hardly anyone came, except for my young son and my roommate, Dan. These two, as it would turn out, were the only ones I would be able to count on from now on.

Two weeks later, after an ambulance service was called by the hospital to bring me home, there was only one more visit from my parents at my home. By now I was getting the distinct impression that their pre-accident loving and caring attitude was now a thing of the past. I wanted them to love me as I’d thought they’d always loved me, only the “love” that I thought was there didn’t seem to be there for me anymore. Why? Have I done the unthinkable? Have I murdered or hurt anyone on purpose? Certainly not. Surely, they know that. If they knew how freaky this accident really was, they should also have known that its final outcome could not have been predicted. Obviously, they don’t know the circumstances of the accident—that is, what led up to it; they just assume they know.

The truth is no one knew why I’d gone off the road, except me, and even I didn’t know why I had passed out at the wheel without warning before I hit that other car.

Two-and-a-half years after my accident, including eight months of rehabilitation, I had fully recovered and was back at work teaching high school full time. My parents and I were getting along pretty well, and I thought everything was okay again with us. Unfortunately, another horrible car crash would happen on Christmas Day of 2002, which would claim my mother’s life, put my father into the hospital with critical injuries for two weeks and traumatize my own life emotionally. That accident happened when my parents took me home after our family’s Christmas Day celebrations at their home. My mother was driving and my stepfather was passed out, drunk, in the front seat. I was in the backseat and ended up being the sole eye witness—the one who had to give an extremely painful statement to the police and the insurance company after it was all over.

What did this second car accident have to do with anything? How was it relevant? About two years later (in April 2004) after my mother died so tragically, my stepfather, Rick, invited the whole family over for a pizza dinner at his place. We were all looking forward to spending some family time together for once, since none of us seemed to be able to find the time for such get-togethers very often. I went over to his place early; no one else had arrived yet. We sat there in the living room chatting casually, and it seemed like a normal interaction between us until I mentioned my own freaky car accident from April 2000. All of a sudden, my stepfather’s attitude changed. His face darkened and his voice got much louder and more aggressive. I was startled enough to stop talking and listen to what he had to say. This was the gist of our conversation that day:

Aggressively, Rick said, “You talk about your car accident as if that were the only important event that ever happened to you in your life. If you had not run your car off the road, you would never have hit that poor woman in the other car. She was seriously injured and could have been killed, all because of you. Please don’t think for one second that I ever had any sympathy for you!”

You bastard! I thought. You have some nerve accusing me of harming someone on purpose when you don’t even know what happened! Piss on you! Since when did you ever give a sh*t about me and whether I lived or died!?

“Rick, I could easily have died in my car accident. If you think that didn’t impact me significantly, then you really don’t get it, do you?” I replied vehemently, in a very defensive tone.

“Well, now that your mother is dead, that hardly matters, does it? Thanks to you, I lost my wife of 31 years two years ago, and my life will never be the same again as a result. Why did we have to take you home that evening anyway?” Rick shouted.

“I don’t know, Rick. Why did you elect to take me home? I could’ve called a cab, or I could have stayed at your place overnight, but no, you decided that you and Mom were going to take me home that evening by making Mom drive! Well, at least you weren’t at the wheel. In fact, you were passed out in the front seat almost as soon as we left here. But Mom was in no shape to drive me home either—she must have been exhausted from all the preparations and cooking of Christmas dinner for all of us!” I screamed.

By this time we were in the midst of a screaming match that was getting hotter by the second. Either I had to leave now or something terrible was going to happen between us. I didn’t want to wait around to find out what that something was going to be.

Rick looked like he was about to physically attack me. It was just at that moment that my youngest sister, Vivian, and her family arrived, and only then did Rick start to calm down. Otherwise I really don’t know what would have transpired then. Eventually, everyone else—my younger brother, Shane, my younger sister, Kate, and their respective families—arrived for the pizza dinner Rick had promised us that evening.

Needless to say, I needed several very strong drinks of whatever happened to be available—the stronger, the better. As a result, I was pretty drunk by the time everyone started to leave that night, nevertheless; I was one of the first ones out the door. For safety’s sake, I managed to hitch a ride with Shane’s family because I could not have gotten myself home otherwise.

I vowed never again to be alone with Rick now that I had discovered that he had been holding me responsible all this time for my own mother’s death! He’d practically said it to me: that if I had died in my own car accident, Mom wouldn’t have died in ours. I was totally mortified by his attitude and the way in which he’d delivered it to me just before everyone else had arrived there. The situation made me sick to my stomach. So, I promised myself that I was going to stay away from him—for the rest of my life, if necessary. Obviously, being together as a family was not going to be in the cards for me as long as Rick maintained this hostile attitude toward me. As much as Rick might want to deny it, I have missed my mother very much over the years, just as much as he’s missed his wife. The truth is I couldn’t have loved her more if I tried, and I always will. I just hope she could forgive me for not being able to be the loving stepdaughter that she’d always hoped I could be.

copyright - Anne Shier, 2013, all rights reserved, published by Authorhouse, Bloomington, Indiana, USA