A headache

I was out exploring possible neighborhoods this evening and was headed home. I stopped at a light on the frontage road of a major highway when, whack! I was rear-ended at terrific force. I remember checking quickly to see if I was at a red or green light – it was red. Then I know I got dazed. Another head injury - twice in one year! So this is what it feels like to play high school football in Texas.

I didn’t want to move so I put on my flashers and called 9-1-1. I had the luck and presence of mind to know exactly where I was (not such a reasonable thing in a foreign location). They asked if I needed EMS but I didn’t think so. The person who rammed into me was obviously conscious and was gesturing but I decided not to move. It was dark and the road was super busy so I stayed put. Within perhaps 6-7 minutes, a squad pulled up and after stopping at her car, eventually came up to mine and asked me what had happened, etc. Her car wouldn’t start. After getting the reports written up, a tow truck arrived and the cop asked me to drive to through the intersection into an empty church parking lot. I wasn’t sure my car would drive but it did – though something was scraping. The car is a Toyota Yaris with less than 1000 miles.

When I got to the church parking lot, I got out and looked at the damage. Ouch. The bumper did its job and won’t be doing anything else in this lifetime. The trunk is smacked in and won’t budge. The cop, tow truck and another squad eventually all made their way to the parking lot where the tower secured the vehicle – a BMW SUV. The offending driver got out of the second squad with a little girl. Yikes, a child had been in that car. They climbed up into the tow for a ride home.

The first cop and the tow driver struggled with the misshapen plastic bumper so that I could drive it but to no avail. So the tow driver pulled out a fair replica of a Bowie knife and sliced off a chunk of the bumper. Amazing that the plastic in the bumper can prevent the car from crumpling in a wreck but you can slice it with a knife. Oh, and the BMW? Not a scratch.