Crash

The light at Sprinkle and Gull had been green for a long time. Although it was eleven on a Friday night, and I knew the cops would be out, and even though I was already going about five miles over the speed limit, I punched the accelerator because I was tired and just wanted to get home.

It had been a good night. I’d left rehearsal for Frozen Jr., the show I’m directing, unusually early; I tend to stay around until the last staff members are on the way out the door. Friday night, though, Rollerworld was having its soft re-opening after closing for months to install a new floor, and I put my foot down that I was going to leave rehearsal as soon as it was over so I could get there in time for 18+ Retro Skate.

At retro skate, by the way, they play stuff like Ludacris and Destiny’s Child, and I almost always leave feeling older than when I arrived. Which, technically, is accurate, anyway.

My friend Delma, one of the costumers from the show, met me at the rink later; she’d stayed behind to deal with some frustrations behind the scenes. We skated those frustrations out and practiced going backward in the beginner’s section of the floor. At one point in the night, a fast skater maneuvered around me a little too close for comfort, and I said, “I almost got in a collision!”

I’d known when I went out that I had an early morning the next day. Saturday was a scheduled “dry tech,” a day when all the set pieces needed to be placed and spiked, drops needed to be moved, and crew assignments needed to be worked out. It’s a long day, followed by the longer “tech Sunday,” and my stage manager, Delaney, had insisted on a hard nine a.m. start time.

But I’d really wanted to go roller skating.

Delma and I didn’t ride together. In fact, she didn’t know I was in the red minivan that made it through the light while she sat in the left-hand turn lane. The van is my husband’s car. Usually, I drive a beaten-up Jeep Compass with a big dent in the back from hitting the pole by the stage door at the auditorium. But it was me, rapping badly along with Megan Thee Stallion’s “Thot Shit,” going ten miles over the speed limit to make it through one of the longest lights in town.

I made the light right on the line, “I’m the shit per the recording academy.”

The next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of Gull road beside my husband’s Town & Country, screaming for help. It’s a busy area with lots of traffic, strip malls, fast-food restaurants, and lights. I might as well have been in outer space standing there, cradling my arm and clutching my chest, wondering what had just happened. It was only a few seconds, I’m sure now, but it felt like I stood there for a long time in pain, screaming for help that wasn’t coming. It was the loneliest thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I thought I was having a heart attack. I thought I’d been shot.

Then, I saw the other car.

Back at her house, Delma told her husband she’d just seen a terrible accident. An SUV blew past her going so fast it shook her car. The SUV swerved to avoid hitting another vehicle. It lost control, smashed into the back of a red minivan, and spun off into the exit area of the carwash, where it burst into flames.

No fewer than eight police cars had been in pursuit of the SUV.

She didn’t know she’d seen her friend get involved in a high-speed crash, just like I didn’t know that the man in the burning SUV was still, somehow, miraculously alive. Just like I didn’t know that the officers who came to help me had been chasing that driver. As they led me to a patrol car to wait for an ambulance to arrive, I sheepishly admitted, “I don’t want to sit in the seat. I peed my pants when he hit me and I don’t want to put my wet pants on the seat.” They assured me it wouldn’t be the worst thing that had been on that seat “tonight,” which did not reassure me. I asked them, “What about the guy who hit me?”

An officer young enough to be my son immediately assured me that the man would be held responsible. I had to clarify that I was asking if he was alive. I was going sixty when he slammed into the back of the van; he’d been going so fast, I hadn’t seen him or the lights from the police cars behind us. “He was going about a hundred when he lost control,” the officer said grimly. “He’s pretty lucky.”

Lucky would have been not getting caught, I thought, and did not say, because police make me nervous. And because I was hyperventilating and my teeth were chattering, which also makes it difficult to speak. The chattering teeth, I have now learned, were due to the massive amounts of adrenaline that also caused me to refuse medical treatment because, “I don’t feel that bad.”

If you are ever in a car accident, do not send the ambulance people away in the direct aftermath. You will almost certainly feel “that bad” later and regret that decision.

I texted Delma. “I got into a bad accident. Can you tell the group chat I won’t be there tomorrow?” And then I felt guilty for letting everyone down. Delaney messaged me, “We did insist on a hard nine a.m. start time,” to make me laugh, which I did.

Mr. Jen came to get me and took over talking with the police and arranging a tow for our vehicle. He wanted me to stay in the car but I couldn’t sit still. I went to the van and got my roller skates out, and my script, because I’ll need that this week. I took a picture of the crumpled rear of the vehicle and thought, that doesn’t look all that bad.

The next morning, Mr. Jen examined the van in the light of the day. The interior had detached from the exterior. The airbags in the headrests had deployed. The driver’s seat was broken and twisted. All of the safety features that had been engineered to protect me had done their jobs.

I’m a fan of the brand now.

I was also broken and twisted, and deeply regretting not making a trip to the emergency room. In a couple of hours, I’ll be seeing my doctor to address the throbbing pain in my head, the visual disturbances and occasional loss of clear sight in my right eye. The searing neck pain. The fact that my right boob is two cup sizes larger and a lovely lavender hue. The bruises on my abdomen and thighs. The fact that I can’t raise my arms to shoulder level or hold even a full mug of tea without becoming impossibly fatigued. I had no idea I would feel this way when I sent the ambulance away.

Don’t send the ambulance away.

I tried to go to tech Sunday for my show. It was a mistake that ended in a tearful breakdown and an early exit. I felt like a failure, though I know it’s not my fault. “I dropped the ball,” I sobbed to my co-director, Jeremy, who reminded me gently that I did not drop the ball. The guy who hit me did.

But as I sit here, my brain fully fatigued but desperate to get all of this out, half-listening to Mr. Jen on the phone to the insurance company, I wonder whose fault it really is. I was going fast, sure. But if I hadn’t made it through the light, the guy would have hit me while I was at a standstill. I know I wouldn’t be here at all if that had happened. Clearly, the person who stole the SUV in the first place made a horrible choice, and followed it up with the absolutely baffling decision to run from the police.

“I don’t know why people run from the police,” Jeremy said as we sat in the auditorium, waiting for tech Sunday to kick off. “They always get caught.”

Myself? I don’t know why the police chase anyone. It seems like someone always gets hurt. The suspect. An officer. An innocent bystander.

This time, the person who was hurt was me. I already suffer from C-PTSD. I’m already disabled. I didn’t need another traumatizing incident or more pain. And from the details I know, the chase didn’t accomplish anything other than the accident, which wrecked the stolen property, anyway. There wasn’t an abducted person in that vehicle. There wasn’t, as far as I can tell, a reason they needed to nab the criminal right at that very moment I was going through the light.

I’m glad I was driving a little irresponsibly; it’s possibly the only time it’s going to save my life. I’m thankful the driver fleeing the police didn’t die; stealing a car shouldn’t come with a death sentence. I hope very much that whoever it was will have a better life and make wiser choices after this. I hope the person whose SUV was stolen had good insurance on it and won’t face too much of a financial hardship over this. And I very much hope that the high occurrence of these incidents in Kalamazoo lately (this was the second chase in the same area in the same week) will make city and county leaders reconsider whether or not high-speed pursuits are a sensible solution to public safety.

I don’t know what I’m going to hear when I go to the doctor’s office today. Probably, “rest,” which I think we all know that I will not be doing during a show week because I can’t let these kids down. I’ll keep everyone updated. In the meantime, drive carefully and stay safe.