I forgot to mention how it all happened. Me and a friend were coming back from Steak N Sheak in ... Duluth, GA i think?... after watching the movie Purge: Anarchy. Well on our way through Dacula, GA we got T-Boned by a 2011 Mitsubishi Lancer that had ran a light. According to police they had started to chase this car (which they're not supposed to do in city limits btw) after the person passed someone on a double yellow line (means no passing) in a 35MPH zone. One officer said to me he figured they were going about 50 or so when they hit me. He also mentioned that they had Heroin in the car along with things normally used with that particular drug. Paramedics told me the same thing. Yet... for some reason... there's no mention of this in the police reports in relation to my accident. I figure they want to save that for when the police dept. presses drug related charges against the driver and her passengers. I was driving about 45mph, speed limit was 45. All I remember is the sound of tires screeching, the sound of the impact and burning pain all the way up my spine and head, and feeling the car was in a spin. I think I blacked out when we landed in a ditch... I remember waking up and pulling the key out of the ignition since the engine had already stalled... and saying, "guess we aint going anywhere now..." before passing out again. I woke up to the sounds of them pulling my friend out of the car before being able to get to me. I remember hearing them saying "we've got live ones here". They really hadn't expected us to be alive. once we were finally in the ambulance they told us about there being drugs in the car. I tried to lighten the mood a bit by joking about not needing a supercharger for my Impala anymore, cause that's just who I am. I also mentioned that the movie wasn't bad either. A little while later an officer came to visit to get my story and such. Then the doc had me do some tests. That's when they found out about my condition and they also found a tumor. The neurosurgeon told me if I didn't allow him to remove the tumor that he couldn't be my doctor since it would essentially be an act of suicide. Of course I let him remove the thing. The next day I was able to see my friend. He had broken several ribs, collar bone, shoulder bone, and some other bones in that area. He's doing well now, but still some issues with his shoulder from time to time, but that should heal eventually. That same night/morning they had me in for surgery to remove the tumor and drain fluid. The next day or so they installed the shunt and i was in for a few more days for them to check up on me. It was kinda odd having to learn how to walk again lol. I was using a walker 2 or 3 weeks after I left the hospital, one b/c I was still unbalanced, and two b/c I still hadn't got my replacement glasses yet. And then a couple weeks after that I'm back on the road delivering pizza for Dominos. The accident happened at about 3am on July 23rd. I'm still sore in quite a few places, mostly along my spine, near my "gut" and some of the areas the shunt's tubing runs along. Also, my head is ALWAYS sore. Sometimes I can FEEL the fluid being drained out of my brain... starts in one part, then you feel it in another... till its done for the time. I still have moments of confusion or losing my train of thought, sometimes dizziness, or rather a faint feeling and being unbalanced (apparently there is a difference...). I'm still re-learning my limits at times. Sometimes I randomly feel overwhelmed and drained. Hands sometimes shake a little... so my handwriting is terrible now lol. At least they work well enough for me to type still and still rather quickly... though sometimes I wonder... the keyboard feels a lot stiffer than it used to. I'm hoping a lot of this will get better over time, but there's a chance of complications with the shunt still, which appears to be common from what I've read on the webs. All I can do is take it a day at a time. Though some good news... I'm getting about $50k for pain and suffering paid by Statefarm for the accident on behalf of the other driver. Still some other things to handle though... Like GM and not issuing the recall even though they knew about it since 2007. I got the notice about a month after the accident. Heh... what do you know... its 3am now... Nov 11th. Exactly 4 months.
and here's the intersection it happened at...
top is north. The lancer was heading north to south while i was going west to east. the impact happened about where that white SUV on the map is. I think my car had knocked out the corner sign of the intersection and i ended up facing those trees behind the red car, I was in the green to the bottom right of the intersection. as you can see from the angle the road crosses, and the trees at the corner, there was no way for me to see them coming.
