(From November 1st)
At 1:30 a.m.
this morning, Michael and I were almost killed in a car wreck.
We were on a
freeway in Milford, heading home from a night out with friends in downtown New
Haven. There were drunk people swerving all over the road. I tried to catch the
license plate number of a particularly trashed driver and call 911 to report
them. Suddenly, another sloshed driver came barreling out in front of us,
zigzagging across the road like he was trying to stitch the lanes together.
Then, several things happened at once. There was a sickening crunch. We shot
forward as the windshield cracked into spiderweb patterns, rippling out across
the whole pane. The glittering shards rained down. Time and sound seemed to
freeze. I bit my tongue and braced my feet, but felt nothing. Mike screamed,
"Oh, shit!" Then the car jolted to a stop.
Mike asked if I was
okay. He said he felt fine. I said my feet hurt, and couldn't stop shivering.
Two people from the highway stood guard around us, told us what happened,
called the ambulance. My phone was somewhere on the floor, but I wasn't about
to dig through broken glass to find it.
I checked to see
if my cyborg Halloween makeup was still intact. Weird what we prioritize when
in shock.
EMTs showed up.
They took off my boots, and my right foot was ballooning. I couldn't walk. They
strapped me down to a stretcher and rolled me into the ambulance. All I could
think was that the ride was bumpy. They fiddled with wires, pumped something
stronger than morphine into my veins. Told me Mike was in the other ambulance
and he was fine. I answered all the questions they asked: my name, birth date,
social security number. I clung to those answers as static truths in the
speeding white van. Gathered the facts of my identity, like piecing the
shattered glass back together.
"I'm Emily
Kirchner."
"I was born
on November 26, 1986."
"I'm married to Michael O'Malley,
and he's going to be okay."
There were other
truths flying haphazardly around in the background: Who I am. Who Mike is. What
we believe and love and want. But for now, the basics would have to hold.
Mike and I
stayed in the hospital until 7 in the morning and didn't sleep. The car was
totaled. It was a near head-on collision; engine to engine. If we'd been in a
smaller car, we would have died. He had bruised ribs, a banged up shin, and
raging asthma from the powder that had burst from the airbags. The doctors
thought I had broken both my ankles, but they were sprained. They hooked me up
to wires and I joked that now I was like a real
cyborg. Finally, we were able to go home.
Our friend Mike G. stayed in the hospital with us all
morning and drove us out to a diner, where they had to carry me into the
bathroom in excruciating pain. We talked about finding me a wheelchair. Mike G.
dropped off our Percocet prescription and drove us home. He had been awake for
more than 24 hours at that point and was worried sick.
Michael's
sister Terri stopped over later and brought us to
CVS. She helped me around, talked with us about graphic novels. We've had
friends visiting and calling and bringing food all day. Fola made me
an incredible Jamaican dinner. I can't imagine what I could have done to
deserve such wonderful people in my life, but you have my gratitude and my
love.
This puts a lot
of things into perspective. I may not be able to walk for a while, but it could
have been so much worse. It's astounding that we're alive. Earlier that night
I'd been scolding my husband for getting too rowdy and in-character for his
Halloween costume. He later apologized, and we both were quiet as we thought of
how much we matter to each other. All things considered, we'd had a good time
up to that point. The outing was terrific and we'd left fully sated, so at
least this didn't happen until afterward.
Interesting that
a night of dressing up like a cyborg would show just how human we are.
