Two weeks after Dean was born I got a call around midnight from my visiting teaching companion's 10 year old daughter, crying and saying that her step dad fell at their new restaurant, and wasn't moving, and they didn't know what to do. They had called 911 and paramedics were there, but they were still really scared. Spencer was their home teacher so I asked if they wanted him to come and they said yes, so Spencer grabbed the keys and got ready to leave. I asked if he wanted me to come too, but he said no. It was a sort of rainy night and Dean was still so new and little and I was tired, and the restaurant was about 30 min away in Pickerington, so I stayed home with Dean. Awhile later, spencer called me and said that he met up with them at the hospital where they took Peter, and helped translate for them (Peter and Wai fan are from china), and that the nurses said from the x-rays that it looked like Peter had fractured some ribs, but he would be admitted to the hospital and would be okay. So Wai Fan was going to stay with Peter that night in the hospital, and they asked if we could watch Sharon and have her stay with us for a night or two (or three) until they figured things out. Spencer said yes, and then called to say he was headed back with Sharon.
I remember sitting in bed with Dean, it was about 1am, and looking out the window every so often to see if the car was back yet, and it was so rainy outside that I started getting worried and praying that they would get back safe. At about 1:30 or 1:45 they still weren't back, and I got a call from a random number and I knew it was them so I answered it, and Spencer said something like "I got in a car accident. We are all okay. No, it wasn't my fault, no this isn't a joke. I'm on someone else's cell phone, (bc he left his at home bc it was out of battery, and he took mine, but when they got hit the cell phone flew and the cell phone shutoff and wouldn't start back up. -actually, it was lucky he had mine, because he only knows his own phone number by heart, not mine.) ... "Oh, and I'm pretty sure the car is totaled. Ok, I gotta go, the cops are here. Can you call Nate to come pick us up? K thanks, bye."
So I called Nate (they were about to move a few days later. We were lucky they hadn't moved yet!), and he drove out to pick them up. I didn't even know where they were at, except Spencer said it had happened just down the street 5 minutes from the hospital, and that Nate could meet them there in the emergency room. So Nate went out, ended up seeing Wai Fan in the ER and asked where Spencer and Sharon were and told her about the crash, (she didn't know yet) and just then Spencer and Sharon came walking up. Wai Fan just felt so bad about everything, and she was still worried because Peter was in the hospital and in so much pain, but Spencer told her it was okay, and then Nate drove them back home to our house. Sharon stayed with us a day or two, but Peter actually ended up being discharged fairly quickly so they could all go home together. Luckily Peter's son could help drive them and stuff. We were still stressed out from having a new baby so Angie was nice enough to watch Sharon for a day while we dealt with insurance stuff and relished being alive. I think she even brought us dinner the next night. She is so amazing.
According to Spencer, they were stopped at a red light, turning left, and when it turned green they started to drive and a car came from their left going about 45 mph and ran a red light and hit the front of the car, spinning the car 180 degrees and totally smashing up the front of the car. He said there was fluid leaking all over and part of the engine laying in the street. Because they were hit from the side technically, the airbags didn't deploy, which was also a blessing because Sharon was sitting in the front seat. :/ She shouldn't have been in the front, but I think because she had just had this traumatic experience with her step-dad it was comforting for her to be closer. Plus Sharon said her brother always lets her ride in the front. :/ But luckily, neither of them, or the other driver, were seriously hurt. Spencer's shoulder was bruised and he was very sore for a few days, and Sharon had a red seatbelt mark on her chest, and the other driver's airbags deployed, but miraculously none of them were seriously hurt, even though both cars were totaled. If it had been a difference of a few feet, if not one foot, Spencer could have been killed.
Spencer wanted to do a blogpost on the crash using the bus crash scene from the season 5 of the walking dead, so I'll just put this here for him:
The guy who hit them was a teenager getting off his night shift at Taco Bell. He was working trying to save money for college, and he just didn't see them. And he ran the red light. He felt really bad and was worried his parents were going to kill him, and that his future was over and that he'd never make it to college, etc. Spencer talked to him and told him it was going to be okay, accidents happen, we all have insurance, and when the guys mom showed up they were able to talk calmly and deal with the police report and tow trucks and stuff. Spencer said that after they got out of the car after being hit, he hugged Sharon. Haha. Happy to be alive, I guess.
Angie and Nate were moving a few days later, but they were nice enough to help us out a ton before they moved, even though they were busy. Nate drove us to the tow lot to get everything from the car before it was declared total loss and handed over to whoever for parts or whatever, and this is what the car looked like:
I found the front license plate in the car on the back seat.
It still had part of the bumper attached.
We were lucky we hadnt bought new tires yet (it was on out to-do list!), although we has just done an oil change. We did the oil change ourselves though, so it was more for the learning experience than anything. Also, the car had over 200,000 miles on it and we were worried it wouldn't last much longer anyways, so even though this was Spencer's dad's baby, I guess we weren't too devastated to lose the car. I think we were more upset at the hassle we would have to go through with no car and a new baby, and Angie and Nate leaving. But it worked out. It was just more stressful than anything.
We stocked up on groceries and stuff before Angie and Nate moved, and then after they left we went a week with a rental car under insurance, and then a week or two without a car, and then our next door neighbors, conveniently also our home teacher, let us borrow their car a few times to go look at used cars from Craigslist. It was kind of annoying because we had to wait to get the insurance money for the car before we could purchase another one, so the whole process just took time.
Let me tell you, Craigslist car hunting sucks. But it was a good learning experience. We started looking for a Camry or corolla, similar to what we had, and saw the "Keegan" car, a piece of crap, and then a rusty blue honda who's owner stood us up, and then a shady used car lot near Cleveland ave that we drove past and decided we weren't getting out of the car, and then a Mitsubishi lancer with oil leaking/seeping from the engine, and then a toyota rav4 that seemed perfect, but not just right. It was a nice car and we really liked it, but I couldn't sleep all night because the seller said there was another potential buyer who had already put down a down payment, and the seller was pushing us to bid higher, but we didn't want to make an offer until we had the car inspected, and he didn't want to let us get it inspected until we made a higher offer. But the next day I started looking at honda crvs, because we decided we liked the mini SUVs. So I put on a Craigslist email alert, and soon was pinged with a new posting for a crv by original owner within our price range. I immediately emailed asking to come see it, and we set up a time later for that day. We were about to make a high offer with the toyota rav4, but figured we'd go see the crv first. And we were so glad we did! We knew immediately that this car was leagues above the toyota, and from the car to the owners we knew immediately we wanted it. The sellers were a youngish husband and wife, and it was the wife's car from college. Her dad works for Honda at the marysville plant, and they bought it new in 2002. They had it serviced regularly at the Honda dealership, with Honda mechanics, for its entire life, so it was in great condition. She had just replaced the battery and tires in May (we bought it in August), and had an inspection done on it and the only thing needing to be replaced sometime soon was the serpentine belt. (We just replaced it!) We test drove the car for about 10 minutes, and then talked for a minute and decided we wanted it, then offered their asking price and they said "sold! It's yours, we have a deal." So the next day we met up at the bank and purchased it from them. It was awesome. And it was right at the upper end of our budget, but still within, so we felt really blessed. And lucky. AND, Spencer later confided to me that in high school he always dreamed of having a blue car. Ha. It is so fun to drive too. And there's a table in the back! We have yet to use it, but its cool that it has one.
It is interesting the processes we have been through this summer in searching for a new car and for an apartment in Chicago. Right when we were about to settle with something that looked good, but not quite right, something WAY better fell into our laps, as our last option, and it was the perfect thing for us. Sure, the car crash sucked, but it wasn't too hard to find the silver lining after everything was over. We love our new-to-us car, and its fun buying our first car together! 3 months later and we haven't had any problems with the car. It's been perfect for us, and again, a huge blessing!
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| Us with Wai fan and Sharon. We're still friends. Peter, not so much. |
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