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I got home this afternoon. I feel like I've been run over. My face hurts and my jaw is badly swollen, I think from the air bag. I have massive, painful seat belt rash and brain fog. My tongue hurts from where I nearly bit the tip off. The kids went up and brought my wife home from OHSU later this evening. She's badly bruised up and has a bruised lung.

Apparently we were driving along a county road, minding our own business, driving the speed limit, and Ditzlefritz was flying down a side road towards us, blew through a stop sign at 45mph, smashed into the passenger side of my truck where my wife was riding, pushing us across the other side of the road and straight into a tree. My truck is completely and totally destroyed. I had been holding out hope that it might be repairable until my kids went and took photos of it. I bought that truck before I met my wife, all the kids were babies in it, tons of memories. I babied it and kept it in excellent shape. That truck has been a real part of me. It's the least of my worries though; this could have been so much worse. We're blessed that we're both alive and will both heal up well in time.

I have no memories of yesterday. The doctor kept talking to me about my "traumatic brain injury". Apparently my head broke the side window or something. We can't find my new glasses that I'd just spent a bunch on. There were handguns in the truck, and my wife tells me that I repeatedly told the firefighters and officer on the scene to make sure they got to a friend who's a senior officer for safe keeping. They did and that worked out fine. He's an awesome friend and has helped me through this thing a lot.

The scary thing is that you can be driving along perfectly, and out of the blue - BOOM! I'm told that the collision was caught on security video by the business across the road. There was absolutely nothing we could have done to avoid it, nor did we see it coming. Due to the brain injury I have no memories until waking up at the hospital, but my wife remembers it all. All of a sudden our truck was picked up and thrown across the road into a tree. As much as I'm going to miss my truck, it did its job in protecting us. It's scary to think what it would have been like if we had been in my wife's little car. I very much doubt that both of us would still be here.

The other driver was arrested at the scene, charged with DWI and vehicular assault, I believe. Now comes the long, painful process of physical recovery as well as navigating the legal process with the insurance companies. I'm not looking forward to that.
 
I got home this afternoon. I feel like I've been run over. My face hurts and my jaw is badly swollen, I think from the air bag. I have massive, painful seat belt rash and brain fog. My tongue hurts from where I nearly bit the tip off. The kids went up and brought my wife home from OHSU later this evening. She's badly bruised up and has a bruised lung.

Apparently we were driving along a county road, minding our own business, driving the speed limit, and Ditzlefritz was flying down a side road towards us, blew through a stop sign at 45mph, smashed into the passenger side of my truck where my wife was riding, pushing us across the other side of the road and straight into a tree. My truck is completely and totally destroyed. I had been holding out hope that it might be repairable until my kids went and took photos of it. I bought that truck before I met my wife, all the kids were babies in it, tons of memories. I babied it and kept it in excellent shape. That truck has been a real part of me. It's the least of my worries though; this could have been so much worse. We're blessed that we're both alive and will both heal up well in time.

I have no memories of yesterday. The doctor kept talking to me about my "traumatic brain injury". Apparently my head broke the side window or something. We can't find my new glasses that I'd just spent a bunch on. There were handguns in the truck, and my wife tells me that I repeatedly told the firefighters and officer on the scene to make sure they got to a friend who's a senior officer for safe keeping. They did and that worked out fine. He's an awesome friend and has helped me through this thing a lot.

The scary thing is that you can be driving along perfectly, and out of the blue - BOOM! I'm told that the collision was caught on security video by the business across the road. There was absolutely nothing we could have done to avoid it, nor did we see it coming. Due to the brain injury I have no memories until waking up at the hospital, but my wife remembers it all. All of a sudden our truck was picked up and thrown across the road into a tree. As much as I'm going to miss my truck, it did its job in protecting us. It's scary to think what it would have been like if we had been in my wife's little car. I very much doubt that both of us would still be here.

The other driver was arrested at the scene, charged with DWI and vehicular assault, I believe. Now comes the long, painful process of physical recovery as well as navigating the legal process with the insurance companies. I'm not looking forward to that.
Hopefully the schmuck even HAS insurance!



I see "road rage bumper pool" happen everyday.... it's almost always the jerks in POS cars putting everyone else in danger.

:s0118:






Speedy recovery to you and the wife! :s0155:
 
Glad you're both home and relatively intact. As bad as it was, that could have been so much worse! I can't imagine how disorienting that would be to be driving along one minute and the next be waking up in a hospital.
 
Hopefully the schmuck even HAS insurance!



I see "road rage bumper pool" happen everyday.... it's almost always the jerks in POS cars putting everyone else in danger.

:s0118:






Speedy recovery to you and the wife! :s0155:
With so many driving without insurance, it is important that you have good "uninsured motorist" coverage. Apparently, in this case, it will not be needed, but odds are getting worse!

I'm usually not a fan of government involvement, but a program that adds a penny or two to a gallon of gas that provides a blanket uninsured motorist coverage would make the deadbeats at least pay a little for protecting their victims, while reducing the insurance cost for responsible drivers.

CLT65, wishing you and your your wife a full recovery!
 
Dang, scary stuff! Glad to hear your both home though & on the way towards getting well. Hopefully no long term physical injuries, nor mental trauma.

Hopefully the legal stuff sorts out as swiftly & smoothly as possible.
 
Glad you both are mostly ok. There may be some serious anxiety while driving after this for a bit. Don't feel embarrassed if you lean on a therapist to get over that. I hope you both fully recover quickly.
 
Glad to read you are OK.
Glad too that you were in your Tacoma.
I was in a small car years ago when I was T-boned by a Blazer K5, crushed my car in half. Take your time healing - I returned to work too early and it created a host of problems because I wasn't fully healed.
Your insurance should cover you for full pay while you are out, including, if you work hourly, any regular overtime you can document.
 
Glad you're both able to recover! And kudos to those on scene for also securing your guns. Hug your kids and sue the elver-loving bubblegum out of the other driver so you can replace the truck with an identical one :)
 
damn,
Offering my sympathy and wishes for a speedy recovery to a valuable forum member and his wife. Glad the old truck held together like it did.
 
I'd like to see pics of it. I understand if you dont want to share them
I sent you a photo of what's left of my truck by message. I've been told by a couple people that we should talk to an attorney to deal with the insurance company, so I think I'll hold off on posting anything more about it here, just out of caution. Everything I've posted has been completely factual, and with all the evidence, what happened and who's at fault is beyond question, but just to be careful I'm scheduled to talk to an attorney tomorrow. I wouldn't think I'd need one to deal with the insurance company, since this is so blatantly cut and dried, but I'm a complete novice with this kind of thing. In almost four decades of driving, I've never been involved in anything remotely like this.

I did obtain the video of the collision and once everything is settled maybe I'll post it here. It's pretty amazing that they got such good video of it, and scary to realize that it could have happened to absolutely anyone. I'm sure glad that a school bus wasn't driving along at that moment.
 
Can't imagine how anxious you were feeling without being able to speak to your wife. You can go to different hospitals depending on your trauma level. Doesn't sound like you have broken bones, so yeah you definitely had it good considering how small and thin those 1st gen tacomas are. I'm interested in how the frame was and how it is now.
 

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