“Bumps and Butterflies

          One side effect of staying home to stay safe meant my workout at the gym disappeared over night. At first, I relied on long, daily walks through my neighborhood. A slip while mopping, a strain while raking, a stress while climbing a ladder, and misstep down a crooked sidewalk left me with a knee injury that sidelined any efforts to exercise for months. Although my weight didn’t skyrocket, my blood pressure did! At my annual checkup, it spiked into the dreaded Red Zone for the first time in my life. The PA prescribed medication while advising me to get my own blood pressure monitor. I picked up the machine and the new prescription within an hour.

            For the first time in my life, I found myself needing to return to the doctor’s office more than once within a year. This office, situated across town, had become a nightmare of traffic over the last thirty years. My high anxiety over safely driving to the office meant I’d found an alternate route, snaking through back streets once I made it down I35. Returning home, though, didn’t have a less stressful course. In August, it took me two hours to get home from a follow-up appointment because of an accident ahead of me.

            In September, I became the accident! Coming down I35 N, I decided to move from the center lane to the left lane. I checked to the left and saw a vehicle well behind me. With turn signal flashing, I shifted into the lane. I was totally in the lane when the car that was well behind me PUSHED into me. It was the strangest feeling. I thought, “Have I been hit?” Checked my rear view, and saw a red truck stopped behind me. I moved more to the left shoulder and stepped out of my car to see the driver of the red truck standing next to his car.

            I checked my car and could see no damage, but his front bumper, right around his dealer plates, showed minor damage.

            “Are you okay?” I asked the very young driver. “Didn’t you see my turn signal?”

            “Yes, but it didn’t hit me,” he replied.

            Another truck had struck the red one from behind. I circled around to talk to that driver, who said, “We were going about 70 MPH. I just couldn’t stop it time.” His truck’s front along with the other driver’s rear showed damage.

            The young driver returned to his car, ear to his phone. I knocked on his window and asked if he was calling 911 to report the accident, and he said he wasn’t. I placed the call. As I hadn’t been involved in a traffic accident in many, many years, I had no idea that I’d get texted instructions of what to do next .While we waited, I took pictures of all of the cars.  When the directions came I followed them exactly—made certain no one had injuries, told both drivers that we had to move to the opposite road shoulder where it was safer after making certain their trucks would move. We snaked across the interstate and waited for the police to arrive.

            The officer’s first question to me was why I had called in the accident as he saw no obvious damage to my car. I explained how after I was fully in the lane, the red truck pushed against my back bumper. He got on his knees to examine my rear bumper carefully and pointed out a small blemish that I’d overlooked. By the time the officer arrived, the young driver’s parents were on the scene. The officer handled taking statements from them, too. Eventually, he returned my license and insurance information to me and sent me on my way.

            I called my insurance company immediately, stating that I wasn’t hurt and the car wasn’t damaged, but I’d been hit from behind.  They took my statement and opened a file. Within days, I received calls from the insurance company of the other drivers (both happened to have the same company). One agent asked if I happened to take pictures of each vehicle, which I had and I sent them out immediately. A few days later I received calls from two different agents (each one representing both of the other drivers) to state that the accident was caused by their drivers, but as I had no injury and was making no damage claim, they were closing out my file. A day or two later, I received forms of what to do if I decided to do any repair to the slight damage.

            I heaved a sigh of relief to put this bump behind me. And then my insurance company called to notify me that the red truck driver had an attorney and was filing for personal injury and stating that I made an unsafe lane change. I stated the facts of the entire lane change and figured the ordeal was totally behind me until this week, when my company said that the attorney was still trying to make a claim against me. I asked, “How can I be held responsible when I was hit from behind?” The answer was that the other driver claimed that I cut him off. My representative asked if I had pictures from the scene, which I sent to her immediately. The physical evidence obviously shows I was established in the lane when hit from behind. My wish is that the next contact from my company is that the attorney’s dropping the claim against me.

            To avoid the route to the doctor’s office for my December appointment, I changed doctors to one walking distance from my house. He guided us through Mom’s Huntington’s disease and death, and returning to his office as a patient settled my across town driving dread.

            To cope with the background of worry that fretted my days while giving statements multiple times to various agents, I reached for my camera. Outside, I recaptured calmness with blossoms and butterflies.

Copyright 2022 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman