The Truck, the Commodore and the Fallout #1

On the 15th May 1998 I was involved in car V truck accident, that saw a commodore shortened by 3 foot either end. The following entries are from a diary I kept at the time.

It’s now 13 years later and the pain is still here – the TAC of course have wiped their hands of me. I learnt a long time ago that the only person you can rely on is you and it’s something that has stood me in good stead for longer than I can remember.

15th May 1998

My car has been hit from behind by an unloaded 12 tonne tray truck, which shunted me into the rear of another truck. I was stationary, the truck in front of me was stationary, the truck that caused the accident was doing approx 60kph. He failed to notice the stopped vehicles when he was merging to avoid another truck that was parked illegally (and unloading illegally) on a busy thoroughfare.

I remember my ears touching the headrest with the force of the impact, I remember seeing the truck approaching in the rear vision mirror. My first thought was to remove the vehicles from the road, allowing other traffic to proceed through with minimal disruption.

I called my husband……………….. no answer…………….. I called a girlfriend who lived nearby, thankfully she answered the phone. She came down and picked up me and the majority of the contents of the car (there’s always ‘contents’)

The tow truck came and took my car to the insurance company depot, I got my girlfriend to take me to the insurance company so that I could fill in the claim paperwork.

Whilst filling in the paperwork, I was feeling disconnected and could not verbalise the words needed to describe the situation and I was stuttering,

I went to a doctors local to the insurance company office and made an appointment, I don’t remember how long I waited. I went into the doctors room and he asked me why I was here. I said about the car accident. He looked at me, pressed my vertebra, commented that T6 was tender (after I nearly jumped onto his desk) checked my blood pressure, looked at my eyes, said that the pupils were enlarged, took my blood pressure and said it was 120/80 and I was okay. Asked if I needed a doctors certificate for today and I said I thought it would be a sensible idea. ……….. He gave me a certificate for 2 days……….. he also recommended that I report the accident to police because I had been to see him.

I went to the police station. I made a report which took 2 hours.

I went back to the insurance office and when I got there, hubby was also looking at the wreck.

Although we couldn’t afford it, we hired a car through Hertz, as I had no other way of getting to and from home without a car. Nearest public transport is 10km in the wrong direction.

I went to bed

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