Something Wicked This Way Comes

Let me start with this:

We're sore but ok. We got god damned lucky.

It was such a nice day. Slightly cooler than a normal Atlanta Spring day, slightly overcast. I had spent a wonderful morning playing tennis, and we had just left Sam's Club with a fresh batch of hummus with chips and cherries on our way to a nice family dinner. We were headed south on the I-85 access road at Clairmont, waiting at the stop light at the intersection. We were first in line. Our light turned green. We weren't in a hurry so I took my time as I started into the intersection. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of green.

WHAM

A green Jeep Cherokee slammed into our rear quarter panel, spinning us more than 200 degrees and up onto the median dividing the return access ramp from the access road, or we would have spun around some more.

There was no sound of tires screeching. The rat bastard motherfucker never even tried to slow down. He was no less than 4 seconds late getting to the intersection, and he tried to simply gun it around us. He didn't make it.

This was our poor car just after the wreck. We were coming in the direction that the red mitsubishi in the background there is headed. The guy who hit us was coming in the direction of the 3 cars side by side in the background.

After a few minutes I started having lower back pain, and not 30 seconds after that the paramedics showed up. They asked if anyone was hurt, and I was trying to stretch my lower back out when I told them I was fine. They told me to stop stretching out my lower back, and that they wanted to take me to the hospital as a precaution. This is me getting strapped to the stretcher. They call it a standing takedown, which makes it seem like something Daniel Laruso would administer, but it just means they strap you to the thing vertically and then lie you down horizontally. I tried to tell them I was OK but they were adamant, and, bigger than me.

We wound up at Northside Hospital (again) and after a few hours were both discharged, me with back spasms and Wanda with a magnificent set of bruises and an elbow swollen to the size of an orange. We were told to take it easy, and that the pain would get worse before it got better.

Oh, good.

We did eventually get to the family dinner, but two family members had to come and get us at the hospital, for were a) in no condition to drive and b) had nothing whatsoever to drive even if we were.

Here's another pic of our poor car. Notice the windows and separation of wheel base from frame.

Here's another pic of our poor car. Notice the sad condition of the door handle.

Here's another pic of our poor car. Notice the front wheel is BROKEN.

Here's another pic of our poor car. Notice the back door no longer fits in the frame.

Here's another pic of our poor car. Notice the trunk door no longer fits in the frame.

We went to retrieve our stuff from the car at the tower's (Brown and Brown, nice folks all) to find the hummus, chips, and cherries spread liberally all over the back of the car. Both chip bags had exploded. The hummus container exploded, covering the inside of the trunk with the stuff. Neil wins extra points for helping clean that up.

Now we are home, shaken, bruised, sore, and THANKFUL that we got away relatively unscathed. We can replace the car. It could have been, oh, so much worse.