I had an accident. Shit. Details later.


...


Well the worst thing (so far) that could ever happen to me happened today.

When I woke up, everything seemed fine. I don't remember feeling that something bad's going to happen today. In fact, I was kind of happy because I'm going to the facility I talked about in my previous post. I didn't have to go all the way to Zion and Waukegan. I didn't have to drive 120 miles today. I didn't have to panic 99% of the time. I remember reassuring myself that today is just going to be dandy. Little did I know that at the end of the day, I'm going to regret my decision. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was at the intersection of Elk Grove and Arlington Heights Rd when the accident happened. Both sides of the traffic were red signal. I slowly drove to the white stop line. When I was about 2-3 feet away from the stop line, my signal turned green. I stepped on the gas (but not too much) and proceeded to make a left turn. Before I knew it, I had rammed into the driver's side of a Pathfinder SUV who was on the other side of the traffic. He wasn't making any turns, just driving straight through.

It took me a moment to realize that I had an accident. I checked myself and yes, I was alive but surely nonplussed. I checked the other party. He was alive, thank God. Next were the cars. Mine survived, just missing a left turn signal. The other party's driver's door had a dent. Other than those damages, everything was ok.

I then called 911 and reported what happened. It probably took less than 5 minutes before a police responded but really, I felt it was more than that. He investigated what happened and we waited for about an hour before he let us go. To make a really stressful story brief, the police told me I got the short end of the stick. When you come down to it, it was basically my fault because I failed to yield to the other party. It was his right-of-way, not mine.

Sigh. Oh well... so much for a dandy day.

Anyway, the drive home was uneventful. Aside from a broken left turn signal and an irregular heartbeat, nothing much happened. I was glad I had one of my classmates with me. Talking to her made me calm. Yes, I did go to my clinicals. Insane I know, but I thought if I don't attend, I'm going to think about the accident the whole day. Might as well do something productive.

Well that was my day. I hope you had a better day than I did.