Merry Bleepin' Crash-mas

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My wife and I spent Christmas Eve in the hospital. And you?

First of all, we're OK. Our bodies were shaken and stirred in a car crash, and our little red Prius needs some major repairs, but we are alive and have no broken bones (that we know of).

We had gone to see Black Swan at a mall theater in northern Charlotte and were then going to dinner at P.F. Chang's. I was driving very slowly, because the mall grounds were crowded with last-minute shoppers. We were less than a football field away from Chang's when Roberta screamed: "Oh my God!" A split-second later, we were nailed on the passenger side by a Chevy pickup.

My wife's side-curtain airbag deployed and the contents of the car were sent flying. But we were wearing our seatbelts ... and we realized we were breathing and weren't bleeding. After shaking off some cobwebs for a few minutes, I opened my door and staggered unsteadily out of the car. As I tried to gather my thoughts, Roberta, who has had some surgeries to her neck and other regions, sat as still as possible.

Another person, who had witnessed the entire event, said he was a doctor. He checked on Roberta and helped me find my phone, which I used to call 9-1-1. Amazingly quickly, a police car and an ambulance were on the scene.

While paramedics tended to me -- I was feeling tingling from the left side of my neck down to my fingers -- I overheard the other driver claiming he wasn't going fast. The witness, however, disagreed, telling the driver he was "going like a bat out of hell."

Paramedics immobilized my neck and secured me to a board. Meanwhile, the police were using some kind of tool to pop open the passenger door. Soon enough, they had Roberta out and were strapping her to a board, too. The police asked me a few questions and then Roberta and I were loaded into the ambulance for our his-and-her ride. Shortly thereafter, we were at the hospital and were taken into separate rooms.

I got a CT scan to make sure I had no nerve damage. Roberta, who had pain up and down her right side, had several X-rays taken. Results of all tests, thankfully, were negative. Roberta had bruises, most notably one near her right hip, where the armrest probably made impact.

Less than three hours after we arrived at the hospital, we were cleared to go but we had to wait for a transport service to take us home. We finally made it home around 9:30 and I then called to find out where the car was towed.

It's now 48 hours later. My body is sore but I'll survive. Roberta is more sore, but she'll make it, too. We have hugged and kissed many times, realizing how lucky we were. The fact that we don't celebrate Christmas means that we at least didn't have a holiday to ruin -- yet another benefit of being Jewish!

I'll be spending the next week or more tending to this mess: dealing with insurance companies, police reports, auto-body shops, car rental agencies, etc. Though it will be a big pain in the keister, we know it could have been a lot worse.

By the way, Black Swan is highly recommended.

Oh, and we hear Mrs. Lincoln enjoyed the play, too.
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