Oops, I did it again

 
 
 
 

Yup. I rolled the Jeep.

Took hubby with a raging strep infection to the doctor yesterday. We dropped his prescription off at the pharmacy just in time to go pick up the kids from school, since the weather had turned ugly. Most of the day, it had been a muggy mid 70's day, but while we waited in the clinic, the temp dropped about 20 degrees and it rained sheets. But it had stopped by the time we left the store.

I had opted to take the Jeep since it still had that "new car" feel to me. For some reason, I took the time to fix Charleigh's car seat belt to fit correctly. For some reason.

Since three o'clock traffic is pretty heavy, we took a back road to the school. It is very narrow with no shoulder, and there is a 90 degree curve on a slope. Coming out of the curve, we hydroplaned to the right where there were several large trees and a fence. Instinctively, I yanked the wheel to the left, where the tires must have caught and we dashed into the ditch, setting off Robb's airbag as the car slowly, it seemed, rolled to its side.

Completely dumbfounded, I screamed, "What do we do?" as we struggled with our seatbelts. Charleigh was screaming in terror in the back seat, and immediately, the car was surrounded with helpful bystanders, trying to pry open the moonroof, or the back hatch. Nobody knows how to open the hatch but me. Robb was able to find the phone, and help push me out of my window, which I climbed out of and jumped to the ground, minus a flip-flop. That was a lot farther than I expected it to be. I was singularly determined to get Charleigh out and see for myself if she was ok. I don't remember unclipping her, or Robb finally being able to extricate himself from the weird angle the seatbelt held him in.

Once I had Charleigh in my arms and could see that she was not bleeding, I fell apart. Robb, completely present, made three calls: first to A, to ask him to get the kids from school. Next to the school, to tell them A was coming. And last to 911. The firetrucks were there before he finished the call. An EMT emerged from the cars that had arrived on the scene and she took me to her car, wrapped me in a blanket and told me to stop crying so I wouldn't scare Charleigh. So I did. What an absolute relief to have someone take charge. Sue was very helpful and I was deeply grateful to her.

Sometime in the blur of the next hour, Robb and the police officers pushed to car upright and Robb was nearly successful backing it out of the ditch. The tow-truck arrived just then and made the final pull to get it out of the deep ditch. An ambulance arrived to check Charleigh's tummy and the bruises from the seatbelt on her neck. Although frightened at first, she quickly came to herself and began to charm everyone with her bright smile and her declaration, "I'm Cholly!" The police took the report and issued no citations, even though we had not yet done any of the paperwork on the car, or even called the insurance company to take the Aztek off the policy, let alone set up insurance for the Jeep. This had me flipping out completely until Robb called the insurance company to confirm that we had coverage for the officer's report. They will cover it. Where do I sign up for a Geico commercial? Because they were great. We drove the Jeep home.

Today, we are sore. I have a bruise on my knee which must have hit the dash. Robb has a bizzarre bruise on his leg which we can't figure out what it is. And Charleigh has scratch bruises on her neck from the seatbelt. I'm guessing the Jeep is totalled, but we'll deal with that later.

I don't know what I think. I don't know what I feel. I just want to be very still. The Police officer told me, "Ma'am, I don't want you to be afraid to drive. Just try to take this and learn from it the best you can."