Accidents happen. They are a fact of life. A fact that we all acknowledge subconsciously as we go about our lives.
Late Friday night (okay, it was actually early Saturday morning according to the clock), Will was hungry. He wanted to fix some food, but the kitchen is right next to the master bedroom and my husband, Bill, was asleep. I suggested that Helena drive him to Wendy's late night drive through and chucked a $10 bill at them. Will actually just got his driver's license that very day, but a brand new under 18 license in the state of Utah comes with restrictions. One of those restrictions is no driving from midnight to 5 am. So, if he wanted to go, he had to have Helena drive him. They left around 12:15 am.
At approximately 12:45 am, Bill's phone started to ring... loudly! I had been in the bathroom scrubbing my face. I don't usually answer Bill's phone, but it was so loud and it was so late, I decided to look at the caller ID.
It was Helena.
I quickly answered it to receive the phone call that every parent dreads.
Helena and Will had been in a car accident.
My heart sunk to the floor! I quickly got from her reassurances that both she and Will were not hurt. Then I found out that she had decided to take my car. My NEW car. I asked her if it was her fault. She told me in a shaky voice that she didn't know, but she thought it might be.
Oh! I was MAD! She told me where she was and I told her to hold tight, that I'd be right there.
It was a dark and stormy night. When I got to the scene of the accident, I could see the damage to my car, but I couldn't see any other vehicle. That confused me. I pulled up behind the kids so my headlights could shine on the damage and I set my hazard blinkers.
All my anger bled away when I got to Helena. She was crying and saying "I'm so sorry!" over and over. My poor baby! I just stood there in the rain, holding and comforting her while she cried.
She pointed out where the other car was, about 2 blocks away on the other side of the street and told me her story. She was pulling left out of Wendy's drive through when the tail of the car was hit by another car in the closest lane to the curb. She pulled over right away and immediately started panicking, saying "Mom's gonna kill me!" She didn't know what to do. She started trying to call me right away. She tried 7 times. Because I was in the bathroom, I didn't hear my phone (which is habitually set to vibrate) in the living room. That's when she decided to try her Dad's phone number.
As Helena was standing around looking at the damage to the car and wondering what to do, two young gentlemen in a pickup truck stopped and asked her if she needed help. She briefly told them what happened and they drove over to the other vehicle to check on its occupant(s). When they returned to Helena, they told her that NO ONE WAS IN THE OTHER CAR! They advised her to call the cops. Once they knew her mom was on the way, they took their leave.
I got on the scene about 10-15 minutes after the accident. Once I calmed Helena down and told her it would be alright, I called 911. By the time the local police arrived, it had been over 20 minutes since the crash.
The police confirmed that the other car was vacant. So weird! The police were as puzzled as we were. After having Helena fill out an accident report, the officer sent us home, telling me I could call her during the next graveyard shift to find out if they had located the other driver.
We had all sorts of theories about why the other driver would bail like that.
- Avoiding a DUI.
- Underage/No license/joyriding with Mom's car.
- A combo of 1 & 2.
- A freshly "hot" car.
- A warrant out for his/her arrest.
Okay, so that last one was a stretch. I have a hard time picturing a warrant dodging Nissan Cube owner.
It turned out, none of them were the case. The driver/owner of the other car was just an odd duck. She claims that she sat in her car for 10 minutes, but never saw the driver of the other vehicle, so she got out and started walking for home. Really? She has a 2010 Cube, but no cell phone? And walking for home one town over is somehow a better alternative than asking the workers at the convenience store (or the McD's, or the Wendy's) RIGHT THERE to call the police for her? She earned a citation for leaving the scene of an accident for that stunt.
Anyways, once I got everybody back home, I woke Bill up and told him the news, mostly so he wouldn't be shocked by the damage to the car when he stepped out to go to work the next morning. Then I spent another hour talking to Helena about how lucky they'd been that the hit was to the back of the car and not where they were sitting...
... and to reassure her that, yes, this is a huge deal right now, and we'll get through it.
That's just it. We will get through this. It was scary, she needs to be more careful, and it is a big hassle with insurance and repairs and rental cars...
... but there will come a day a year from now when we can look back on this and realize that we did get through it and we did move on. And there will be a day 5 years from now when we will realize that this accident wasn't even a very big deal in the whole scope of a lifetime.
She and Will are both home safe and sound, and that is really all that matters.
1 comments:
You're exactly right. You all will get through it.
You get Good Job Mom for holding her and reassuring her that you love her. Cars are just things. She (& Will) are more important to you than any material thing. Sure, it's a huge inconvenience to sort through insurance stuff. BUT - your kids cannot be replaced. You recognized that. So GOOD JOB Mom!
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