On Getting Hit by an SUV - #20 - 1/29/2020
*slaps roof of 2020 VW Atlas* This bad boy can hit so fucking hard.
On Getting Hit by an SUV
I hope everyone had a good weekend and a great week so far. As some of you have recently learned, I got involved in an accident last week. For those that don’t know, here’s the full story:
On Thursday January 23rd, at 8:30am, I was crossing the crosswalk on Crenshaw & Exposition to get to the Metro train. All I remember is crossing, looking to my right toward the intersection, and that's it - lights out. I had a little dream that I was on the couch talking with my roommate late at night with a few lamps on in the living room. I don't remember what we were talking about, but I remember it being pleasant and quiet. I opened my eyes and saw a giant light and I realized I'm looking at a ceiling. I saw 4 guys around me and they pulled the oxygen mask off me. One guy goes, "He's coming to, he's waking up." I thought, "Well this is a weird part of the dream." I thought I was going to wake up any moment from this, that I was still at home sleeping. Because of that, I was oddly calm when I came to. I then felt a sharp pain in my neck and realized I was wearing a brace and that my arms were strapped down, my legs being heavy, my head weighing a thousand pounds. Guy behind me goes, "Hi sir. Please remain calm when I tell you this, okay?" I go, "Okay... what is it?" He explained that I was hit by an SUV going 30mph, dented the car's front grill, smashed the windshield, and was hurled 20 feet into the intersection where I laid for about 25 minutes unconscious until the ambulance arrived. I said in a mildly surprised tone, "What?" I asked what color the SUV was. "White," he answered. I have no recollection, still now, of a white SUV - much less getting hit at all. We reached Cedar-Sinai in Beverly Hills, pulled me into the ER, and they started asking me questions to test my memory. "My name is Don Rutledge. The year is 2020. The month is January. Los Angeles. I live in Hollywood. The president of the United States is Donald Trump." Checked out okay. In the ER, a dozen or so people surrounded me patching my wounds, stopping the blood, cleaning my back from all the dirt. They contacted my mom in Texas. She then booked the next flight to LA. Lionsgate was contacted. I was cracking jokes with all the ER nurses and specialists. "Where are my clothes?" I asked. A nurse in the corner raised some cut-up khakis. "Those were my favorite pair!" I jokingly uttered with the medical team... as I shrugged the thought of me nearly meeting the reaper only 30 minutes before that. They took me into the MRI machine to scan my head and brain. They took over a dozen x-rays. I got admitted into the hospital and received a room on the seventh floor. By this time, it's 12:30pm that day. "That was 3 hours?" I thought. Orthopedic surgeons came into my room. "Hi Don, how are you doing? Good, good - well, we have some news for you. Along with your road rashes all over your body and the laceration on your head, we found you have broken your left clavicle in two and the pieces are overlapping. There may be surgery. On the good side, that's the only thing you broke. All bones in your body are intact and perfectly fine. Your back and neck are miraculously okay. You're a lucky one Don." And then I swore he turned around to his team and said, "Autobots, roll out." I was amazed. No broken bones except a clavicle? They then came back that night, told me the surgery would start in the morning, and that the X-ray machine was in my room to take pictures just of my clavicle, nothing else. Next morning, they woke me at 6am to tell me that they called off the surgery. "Don, we checked the new x-rays. You have something called a segmental clavicle fracture. Your clavicle broke in 2 places and it's currently 3 parts: a long piece, a small piece, and a long piece. It seems that they are aligned and we think time would be a better healer." He left. I looked it up. It looks like this: ------/---/------- ... according to the internet, it’s rare. Like super rare. Even rarer that it’s aligned. The segmental clavicle fracture comes once in a blue moon for many surgeons. Mom arrived that Friday, therapists did some therapy, and I got discharged Saturday. Since then, I've been moping around my house trying to get better. Watching a lot of TV. Caught up with Seinfeld season 4 and such. I watched a lot of Seinfeld in the hospital. A lot. I got back to my job today.
I'm feeling better today than I was the day of. My left clavicle region still hurts, but the Tylenol is doing its thing. I got a small sling and a creaky cane. Wondered how I would’ve left this world if I did leave Thursday morning. Questions and questions about existentialism, things in my life, and what I should really be doing.
Recently I got kind of antsy crossing the street now. Not comparing myself to him, but reminds me of Ray Bradbury’s fear of cars.
I need more x-rays this Friday.
Thanks to everybody for the kind messages and thoughts. It means a lot.
3 Things!
1. I remembered when network television in the early to mid-2000s had a reality TV glut. So I watched the 1st season of Hell’s Kitchen on Hulu. Interesting show, Gordon Ramsay is a very passionate man. Even though he admits he has a TV persona that is nowhere like his real-life persona, you can see he is a invigorated guy. Here’s that sound effect we all know https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFtLvkqHIds
2. I watched a 60 Minutes program today about nature. 1) The shark tracker project that has been happening now for a few years. You can track sharks here: https://www.ocearch.org/tracker/?list 2) The Photo Ark project by National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore. Find his progress on photographing every animal species here: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/photo-ark/ and 3) Wolves are coming back to Yellow Stone. The segment: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/the-return-of-wolves-to-yellowstone-park-60-minutes-2020-01-19/
3. While coming back home from the hospital, I had an immense feeling of gratitude for the simplest things. My mom handing me a glass of water. How nice people were when they opened the door for me. How beautiful everything is. On this past Sunday, I went to the park with my mother. Everybody is out and about, rollerblading, playing ball, old people playing chess, young kids kicking soccer balls. The flowers were pretty and the sun was at that 3pm shine through the trees. On a separate note, I watch a lot of Kurzgesagt on YouTube. I remember them talking about how patients coming back from the hospital have a deep “Gratitude Effect” when they go back to the world. They, like I did, notice the little things and have a gratefulness for small acts of kindness. They notice the flowers, the people, the small things that make the day brighter. Really good video, check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0. Also I noticed the beauty in things, so I rewatched this nice video about beauty and how it’s necessary for a society to be happy – I had less of a need to take pain killers after strolling through my apartment’s flower garden. Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O5kNPlUV7w.