The Accident

It's taken me three days to write this. Partly because other demands pull me away, but also because it's extremely emotional to make myself re-live it all again. However, I'm hoping by getting it written down, I can start to put it behind me, focus on the present, and stop going over and over the details of how it all happened.

Friday night, Sadie was hit by a pickup truck. Even just typing the words makes me sick to my stomach. We were out in our front yard at about 8:00 that night watching the kids ride their bikes. Sadie was just learning to ride without her training wheels and she was doing awesome. In that hour before the accident, she had just started teaching herself to get started on her own without one of us holding the bike for balance. Since we live on a hill that's hard for her to ride up and down, we gave her permission to ride back and forth from our driveway across the street into our neighbor's driveway. It was a quiet night with almost no cars going by in the time we were out there, and we figured since we were sitting right there watching, it wouldn't do any harm.

My memory is a little blurred of everything right before and after it happened, but the best I can remember and piece together is this: The guy who was driving the truck is one of our neighbors (a 21-year old kid) who lives across the street and a couple of houses down. He had parked at the curb in front of his house, so only pulled out halfway up the street, which means he kind of just appeared in our peripheral vision before we even heard him coming. Sadie had just ridden up to the top of the neighbor's driveway, had turned around, and was coming back down to cross the street. We started yelling at her to stop, but we think she panicked and either couldn't remember to brake or just started going faster to try to beat the truck. Either way, the driver was actually looking at us, first to just give a friendly wave, and then when he saw the panic on our faces he actually decelerated a bit. He never saw her coming, but that little split second when he slowed down was the first miracle that saved Sadie's life. She went out in front of him, he hit the back of her bike, and she flew off, landing and rolling all the way to the curb in front of us.

The second miracle that saved her life? Her helmet. I'm not always very strict on whether my kids wear helmets - especially when they're just riding around the driveway. And here's the part that makes me go cold from the inside out every time I think about it. I almost took her helmet off that night. It was pretty warm and both girls were getting sweaty. In fact, I actually took Ellie's off because her cheeks were red and hot. But I didn't take off Sadie's. Looking back, I'm convinced it was a prompting that I didn't even consciously take notice of at the time. I can tell you, though, that that moment of impact when the truck hit Sadie is crystal clear in my mind and I know with absolute certainty that I watched her helmet-covered head hit the pavement as she landed. I'm thinking from this point on, my kids won't even walk to the mailbox without a helmet on their heads...

She started screaming immediately and sobbing about how sorry she was for not stopping (only the first of many, many heartbreaking parenting moments to come in the next few days). After some thorough checking out by us and our neighbor who is an ER nurse, we took her to the emergency room ourselves. A CT scan revealed that she had a small hairline fracture and a tiny chip in her hip where she had landed the hardest. She also had a tiny bruise on her lung that luckily didn't end up causing any problems at all. Not to mention numerous scrapes and bruises elsewhere.

The next day and a half (two nights) in the hospital were difficult, to say the least. Kevin and I both spent the first night with her and neither of us got more than an hour of sleep combined. Part of that was because of the notoriously uncomfortable hospital chairs. But mostly it was because we couldn't close our eyes without having the Awful Moment playing out in our mind over and over. The second night wasn't much better.

Sadie was a roller coaster of emotions the entire time (who can blame her?) and would go from laughing and talking your ear off to downright grouchiness and tears in half a second - and then back again. The main reason they kept her so long was her hip and she got the full spectrum of pediatric surgeons, orthopedic specialists, and physical therapists checking on her. By the end, she was so sick of strangers coming in and asking her questions while they poked and prodded her that she'd barely acknowledge them and if they tried to touch her, she'd immediately start bawling. The worst part, by far, was when they made her walk from her bed to the bathroom the first time. She was in a lot of pain and didn't hesitate to let us know it. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do to try to smile and encourage her to keep going when what I really wanted was to pick her up and hold her in my arms while she and I both bawled.

Despite the overwhelming, nightmarish circumstances of us being there, we still managed to have some of the most tender, spiritual moments I've ever had in my life. The more we talked about it and the more we sat and stared at our beautiful, beat up little girl, the more it was confirmed that we were very blessed indeed. A half a second or a few inches would have made our experience one of downright devastation. Instead, we prayed, and then prayed again and again, prayers of gratitude that she came out of it all so well.

And there were the good moments, too. The early morning when she woke up and asked me to come lay by her in bed. I got to hold her tightly in the quiet morning hours and, once again, offer prayers of thanks that I still got to do that. There were the priesthood blessings given by Kevin to both her and myself assuring us that everything would be okay. There was the time that Kevin made up a song to the tune of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" about the glowing red light they had strapped to her toe and had both she and I in fits of giggles.

Her recovery and our experiences since we've been home is a whole other story and this is already too long, but I'll summarize it by saying she's completely amazed us all. If you had seen her during that first awful walk from her bed to the bathroom in the hospital, you'd be astounded at what she's doing now. She uses a little walker to cruise around our house like it's nothing. I'm pretty sure she'll be venturing away from the walker here in a day or two. The doctors told us her young little bones would heal themselves without any casts or surgery, and it looks like they were right.

She's a brave little girl and we are grateful every single second for her.

I also had a few pictures, but I think I'll add them another time. If I don't get this published now, it may never get done!