One year ago today

At approximately 11:20am on October 24, 2007, Sara's entire life changed on Highway 101. She left work at the veterinary hospital with plenty of time to spare before class in Santa Rosa. She changed clothes, grabbed her bag and left in her beloved metalic baby blue Cruiser affectionately named "Maria". She drove on Rohnert Park expressway crossing over 101 and went to her bank. She pulled out a crisp, new $20 bill so she could catch some lunch after class. Then, folding it in quarters put it and her ATM receipt in her little white wallet, snapping it closed.

Back in her car she headed to the Rohnert Park Expressway on ramp to 101N, a drive she's made a hundred times, with me and alone. Traveling up the long ramp she gained speed and passed where the carpool lane and regular lane merge before meeting 101. Now she's at the long merge on 101, where the ramp slowly melts into the lane. Looking over her shoulder to the left she is picking her spot to take the lane. Traffic is light. Then she feels it - the hit. Somebody has hit her from the right. Suddenly pushed into the traffic lane and moving towards the fast lane she swerves to get back - squealing tires signal she's out of control - countersteer and fishtail right, then left. Knowing she's in trouble she does what she's been taught to do, what she's practiced with me to do - get off the road. She points Maria towards the shoulder to exit the roadway and get under control. She hits the dry grass and dirt while braking and the car rotates to face a bit left. Its ok - speed is coming down and she's off the road, the car will come to a stop and she can catch her breath and take in what just happened.

But in an instant everything is changing - the back of the car is up in the air and the ground is rushing towards her. She sees the ditch while she's already flipping in it. Then as the top of the car hits the ground it all goes black. She's spared the sound of glass breaking, the wrenching metal, the flash of pain as her neck and head take the entire force of the accident. She's suspended, upside down by her seatbelt, in a velvet blackness of unconsciousness, that is sparing her from knowledge of the car on fire or the hot fluid that has dripped onto her head and burned her, or of the frantic people trying to break windows to get to her, or of the man who threw handfuls of wet mud on the fire to keep it from growing. She didn't hear the sirens or the people calling her, trying to help her. She was spared the horrible pictures and memories, but awoke after being extracted to excruciating pain and not being able to communicate - hearing words in her head and moans out of her mouth, desperately trying to let them know she was hurt and in pain. The pain shook her and threw her in and out of consciousness. Snapshots of memories litter her mind between the accident and later that night. Little islands of awake where she was taking in everything she could hear and trying to tell us what she felt.

She hears me there off and on, and is comforted by it. I am there off and on, and comforted by it. The doctor said she was a "very lucky girl". No major injuries, no internal bleeding. She should wake up in a few hours with "a hell of a headache". She'll spend a couple of days in the hospital then come home. She has a minor fracture of the side of a vertebrae in her neck...but other than that no broken anything. Seatbelt bruise, some cuts, minor chest contusions, a little aspirate in her lungs.

The neurosurgeon comes on and is going to do an MRI to make sure they didn't miss anything. I'm letting her friends come write silly notes on her arms for when she wakes up. We take sharpie and write love yous and get wells for her to enjoy when she wakes up. The doc comes back and says the MRI is clear and he's going to send her to ICU for the night to observe, but she'll wake up in a few hours.

But she never really does. She becomes conscious after she's off the medication used to paralyze and keep her calm with the ventilator, but she doesn'st really "awaken" as in eyes open, etc. But she's there. She hears me, the nurse, the sounds of the equipment. And she also hears her heart, her blood pumping through her veins and arteries. She hears it loud and then painfully loud as an incredible pain grows in her head. She wants to scream and grab her head, but her limbs are failing her, her voice is silent. Her body is not her own as the sword of a stroke slowly slices into her brainstem. She's screaming inside, screaming for help, praying somebody hears her.

I do. I don't hear her, but I feel her. I feel her fear and agitation. I feel something is wrong and start desperately trying to get the nurse to listen, to get the doctor. She must have thought I was crazy, until she finally did and found that they had missed something, something major and devistating. Knowing the force of the accident went to her head and neck they still managed to miss the major injuries to the arteries of her neck. They missed the dissections, the tearing open of the arteries and the clots they produced. They missed the reduced circulation to her brain and the risk that those clots would break loose and travel into her brain. They didn't see it. They didn't look for it. They didn't recognize it when it was happening. These trusted hands, the doctors and nurses of the so-called Trauma Center, gave her no better care than a regular Emergency Room, but with the same complacence and lack of attention.

She should have been safe. I worked so hard to prepare her for driving, driving emergencies, every conceivable thing I could prepare her for. We practiced, over and over, maintaining control in different circumstances. She knew the mantra about "if things get out of hand get off the road". She had the presence of mind to keep from hurting anyone else. But a ditch that should not have been there changed all that. And doctors who should have been qualified for a higher level of care, but weren't, changed all that. And them not registering the mechanism of injury and doing just ONE MORE TEST, even a cheap duplex ultrasound, changed all that.

In an instant, on October 24, 2007, Sara's life, and the lives of everyone around her, changed forever. One year ago today.