Hit and Run (Narrative)
It was a warm night on the thirtieth day of July 30th in 2006. I was lying on the cold asphalt staring up at the sky wishing for a second chance at life. I lay there, wanting to scream but unable to do so because the pain and agony my body was trying to enduring left no strength to even allow me a scream. My eyes did however well up with tears and they trickled down my cheeks. This was the first time I could remember ever tearing up due to pain.
On the morning of July 30th my alarm clock woke me up at five thirty a.m.by buzzing near my ear. I woke up enthusiastically. I had the whole day planned out. As I tried to chase away the sleep while sitting on my bed with my feet dangling over the side, my phone began to ring. It was my girlfriend Karen, wishing me a good morning. After the call, I went to the bathroom rubbing my eyes, there I proceeded to wash my face, brush my teeth, and change into my sweats. I then grabbed my I-pod and headed to the gym where I worked out for one and half hours. I returned home at seven thirty a.m. where turned the TV on while I had breakfast. After that, I turned on my stereo, played a Nickel Back song, and jumped into the shower. It was eight thirty a.m. I had to go to work before I could have fun in the evening. I got ready and wearing my green suit I looked very professional. I got in to my car and I was on the 15 freeway in no time since there was no traffic so early that Saturday morning. I arrived at work ten minutes to nine and started off with a meeting with all the employees. The next six hours kept me occupied with patients, answering their questions and providing them treatment orientations. During this time my friends called and text messaged me with plans for the night ahead. That kept me eager and helped me get through the day since I was looking forward to the evening ahead. As four pm approached, I received a call from my girl friend telling me to to behave myself that night and to be safe since she was not going to be with me because she was having a girl’s night out.
I left work right after that and I reached home at four twenty five pm. Some of my friends were already waiting for me outside my apartment. I opened up my apartment and my friends just walked in like they owned the place and started serving themselves with beverages from my mini bar. Meanwhile, I jumped into the shower. I got ready and put on my Guess jeans, a Banana Republic shirt and Kenneth Cole shoes. I then went into the living room and made myself a margarita. I did not plan to drink a lot because I was the designated driver. At six pm we all headed to a private party in Delmar where everyone ate drank and danced till around nine pm when we all left to go to another house party near Mira mesa. All together we were a total of about thirty people. When we got the this other party there were already a ton of people, but we all knew each other and we had fun intermingling and we danced and showed off our skills. At ten thirty myself and fifteen others headed to a pool tournament in Clairemont. Here we won some games and lost some, but overall our group did well. At one am my phone started to ring, it was Janice, a friend of mine. She and her friends needed to be picked up from a club in North Park because they were unable to drive. So I agreed to go and pick them up and some of my friends came along too. When we got there we looked around for parking and finally found a spot across the street from the club. We parked and exited the car looking both ways before crossing the street. As I crossed and approached the middle of the street a car came barrelling down the street at about forty miles per hour and slammed into me. My body bounced off the hood and then onto the windshield of the car, then I went flying through the air and landed on the street. The worst part of it all was that I was still conscious and I was able to feel the extreme pain in my body as I lay there helpless. The only thing I could do at the time was making peace with god because I thought I was goner. My eyesight was blurry my ears were ringing and I could feel the presence my friends who were holding me screaming and crying. Hundreds of people from the club had run out and were all crowded around me. When I realized I was alive and would probably make it, my next fear was that I had been paralyzed because my body was numb and I could not feel anything at all. It seemed like forever had passed before the paramedics came. I later learned that it had taken them only three minutes to arrive at scene. When they came they cut my jeans right down the middle and did the same with my shirt and belt. They then put an IV in me. That’s when I started to go into an unconscious episode, when the EMT shouted saying “Ahmed stay with me!” I asked the EMT “Who hit me?” She replied that it was a hit and run. They strapped me to a stretcher and rolled me into the ambulance and took me to UCSD hospital. There I was rushed into the ICU. It was a cold room with humongous lights and ten people with surgical masks towering over me. It was all very overwhelming. The nurse tried putting the ivy on but was not able to find my nerve so as a result my arm was bleeding all over. I started begging them to put me to sleep because the pain was unbearable. It felt like it was like someone was tearing my body apart. At that time I looked up saw the doors open and saw my girlfriend rush in with some of my friends, she saw me and started crying and kissing me on my forehead. I whispered to her that they had me in this cold room for an hour and that I was in a lot of pain. She immediately went and started yelling at the nurses and doctors to get me some kind of treatment and to at least get me out of this pain. Eventually the doctors attended me. They took many of x-rays and found out I had a broken arm, a shattered shoulder, and my leg and some ribs were fractured. The fractured ribs explained why it was so hard to breathe. The good news was that I had no internal injuries or head injuries. The doctors said it would be couple days before they would operate on me, so they sedated me and sent me to one of the housing rooms.
That is where I woke up with my girlfriend beside me and my friends all around me. No one from my family knew yet what had happen to me, and I had no idea how to get hold of them as my cell phone had been crushed at the accident and I didn’t have their numbers memorized. I started playing with some numbers and managed toget a hold of my sister. I asked her to come to the hospital, she became hysterical and asked what had happened I told her that it was nothing serious and to just come down to the hospital alone. Twenty minutes later my sister entered my room and when she saw me she fell to her knees and started crying because I looked terrible. She sat next to me and we talked about what had happened and what we should tell my mom. We were afraid how she would take it since she is fragile because she is a heart patient. We decided that we had to tell everyone.
At this time I started to react to the accident emotionally. I would wake up every couple of hours with drenched with sweat and in the middle of a panic attack. At times I would feel extremely depressed thinking what the future had in store for me after this. At the same time I was strong and determined to get through this ordeal. In a matter of few hours all my family and friends found out what had happened to me. When my mom found out and came to the hospital and saw me, she walked slowly towards me and hugged me. I could feel her heart racing and beating out of her chest. I consoled her while she consoled me. My family flew in to see me from London, New York, Chicago and different parts of California. My friends came in from all over. Even my Biology teacher came to see me. Saying I was a great student, He gave me an A even though I was unable to finish the class. Over two hundred people came to see me at the hospital. It was overwhelming to see how many people really cared about me and loved and supported me. The nurses were saying that they hadn’t ever seen so many visitors for a patient. I felt very fortunate.
The second day at the hospital, a group of doctors came in and said that I was lucky I had no internal injuries or head injuries except for a few broken bones. I took a deep sigh of relief and thanked the lord. Friends that were there with me at the scene of the accident told me that when they saw how bad the impact I was hit with was, they thought I had passed away instantly, but remarkably I was still alive. A couple of my friends that witnessed the incident were also emotionally devastated and could not sleep for weeks.
Later that day my sister rushed into the hospital room with her cell phone in her hand and my dad on the other line. I have never heard or seen my dad emotional but clearly on the phone he could not sustain his emotions and that made me speechless. He was aware of the extent of my injuries because he recently retired for a career in the medical field. He told me that he was going to be on the next flight over to see me. After that, I fell asleep and I suddenly woke up sweating and breathing hard my girl friend, sister and mom ran to get the nurse, I was having a panic attack. The nurses put cold towels on me to bring my temperature down. Due to the extreme pain I was in they also had me on pain medications twenty four hours.
August 3rd, the day of the surgery, hours before it, the finance staff of the hospital approached me in regards to how I was going to pay for the surgery since I had no insurance. I got the feeling that they were hesitant in operating on me unless they had some financial grantee from me and my family. That put a lot of stress on me and my family especially knowing that the incident was not my fault. However the nurses got me ready for the surgery and had me sign waivers. Then I had the sedation team explain me how I was going to be put to sleep then all I remember was going into the operation room and looking up at these big cauliflower looking lights and then I was out. The next thing I remember is waking up in my original hospital room with all my family and friends around me. They brought me so many flowers and teddy bears I could not resist but to have a big smile on my face. I stayed at the hospital a total of seven long days. I still could not walk or move around without the help of at least two people as the day came to go home. A team of psychiatric doctors came to evaluate me to see if I was suicidal or extremely depressed after such a traumatic accident. I told them I loved life and was far from giving up.
I could not go to my own apartment, even though that’s where I really wanted to go, because I was not allowed to climb stairs yet and I lived on the second floor. Also I would need constant care in order to recover. So I ended up staying at my sister’s house for a few months and went for physical therapy every day. It was a struggle but I was determined to get it done. One Monday morning I got a call from my lawyer who said the hit and run suspect was caught and that she was under the influence of alcohol when she hit me that made me furious because she had turned my fine life in to a physical, emotional and financial disaster and on top of that she showed no remorse or responsibility by fleeing the scene. As a result of her indifference I have three metal plates in my body with fifteen screws that I have to live with for the rest of my life and will not be able to be as active in outdoor activities as I used to be. I still have pain to this day and don’t have full range of motion almost a year later.
After the accident I see life differently and I am more cautious of my surroundings. I am a victim of a DUI incident involving an accident; thankfully I am not a statistic for a fatal death due to DUI. I have been a staunch supporter against drunken drivers because unfortunately I have had friends who passed away due to drunk drivers. This experience has made me even stronger in my belief that zero tolerance should be used against people who drive under the influence. Laws against people who drive drunk should be implemented at all times because of all the fatal casualties and the traumatic effects it has on victims and their family member’s. It’s not only a physical effect but an emotional and financial one as well.
The statistics for DUI related deaths are on the rise in America, and fatal injuries are overwhelmingly high because of someone’s foolish judgment to drink and drive and devastate innocent lives and their families.
On the morning of July 30th my alarm clock woke me up at five thirty a.m.by buzzing near my ear. I woke up enthusiastically. I had the whole day planned out. As I tried to chase away the sleep while sitting on my bed with my feet dangling over the side, my phone began to ring. It was my girlfriend Karen, wishing me a good morning. After the call, I went to the bathroom rubbing my eyes, there I proceeded to wash my face, brush my teeth, and change into my sweats. I then grabbed my I-pod and headed to the gym where I worked out for one and half hours. I returned home at seven thirty a.m. where turned the TV on while I had breakfast. After that, I turned on my stereo, played a Nickel Back song, and jumped into the shower. It was eight thirty a.m. I had to go to work before I could have fun in the evening. I got ready and wearing my green suit I looked very professional. I got in to my car and I was on the 15 freeway in no time since there was no traffic so early that Saturday morning. I arrived at work ten minutes to nine and started off with a meeting with all the employees. The next six hours kept me occupied with patients, answering their questions and providing them treatment orientations. During this time my friends called and text messaged me with plans for the night ahead. That kept me eager and helped me get through the day since I was looking forward to the evening ahead. As four pm approached, I received a call from my girl friend telling me to to behave myself that night and to be safe since she was not going to be with me because she was having a girl’s night out.
I left work right after that and I reached home at four twenty five pm. Some of my friends were already waiting for me outside my apartment. I opened up my apartment and my friends just walked in like they owned the place and started serving themselves with beverages from my mini bar. Meanwhile, I jumped into the shower. I got ready and put on my Guess jeans, a Banana Republic shirt and Kenneth Cole shoes. I then went into the living room and made myself a margarita. I did not plan to drink a lot because I was the designated driver. At six pm we all headed to a private party in Delmar where everyone ate drank and danced till around nine pm when we all left to go to another house party near Mira mesa. All together we were a total of about thirty people. When we got the this other party there were already a ton of people, but we all knew each other and we had fun intermingling and we danced and showed off our skills. At ten thirty myself and fifteen others headed to a pool tournament in Clairemont. Here we won some games and lost some, but overall our group did well. At one am my phone started to ring, it was Janice, a friend of mine. She and her friends needed to be picked up from a club in North Park because they were unable to drive. So I agreed to go and pick them up and some of my friends came along too. When we got there we looked around for parking and finally found a spot across the street from the club. We parked and exited the car looking both ways before crossing the street. As I crossed and approached the middle of the street a car came barrelling down the street at about forty miles per hour and slammed into me. My body bounced off the hood and then onto the windshield of the car, then I went flying through the air and landed on the street. The worst part of it all was that I was still conscious and I was able to feel the extreme pain in my body as I lay there helpless. The only thing I could do at the time was making peace with god because I thought I was goner. My eyesight was blurry my ears were ringing and I could feel the presence my friends who were holding me screaming and crying. Hundreds of people from the club had run out and were all crowded around me. When I realized I was alive and would probably make it, my next fear was that I had been paralyzed because my body was numb and I could not feel anything at all. It seemed like forever had passed before the paramedics came. I later learned that it had taken them only three minutes to arrive at scene. When they came they cut my jeans right down the middle and did the same with my shirt and belt. They then put an IV in me. That’s when I started to go into an unconscious episode, when the EMT shouted saying “Ahmed stay with me!” I asked the EMT “Who hit me?” She replied that it was a hit and run. They strapped me to a stretcher and rolled me into the ambulance and took me to UCSD hospital. There I was rushed into the ICU. It was a cold room with humongous lights and ten people with surgical masks towering over me. It was all very overwhelming. The nurse tried putting the ivy on but was not able to find my nerve so as a result my arm was bleeding all over. I started begging them to put me to sleep because the pain was unbearable. It felt like it was like someone was tearing my body apart. At that time I looked up saw the doors open and saw my girlfriend rush in with some of my friends, she saw me and started crying and kissing me on my forehead. I whispered to her that they had me in this cold room for an hour and that I was in a lot of pain. She immediately went and started yelling at the nurses and doctors to get me some kind of treatment and to at least get me out of this pain. Eventually the doctors attended me. They took many of x-rays and found out I had a broken arm, a shattered shoulder, and my leg and some ribs were fractured. The fractured ribs explained why it was so hard to breathe. The good news was that I had no internal injuries or head injuries. The doctors said it would be couple days before they would operate on me, so they sedated me and sent me to one of the housing rooms.
That is where I woke up with my girlfriend beside me and my friends all around me. No one from my family knew yet what had happen to me, and I had no idea how to get hold of them as my cell phone had been crushed at the accident and I didn’t have their numbers memorized. I started playing with some numbers and managed toget a hold of my sister. I asked her to come to the hospital, she became hysterical and asked what had happened I told her that it was nothing serious and to just come down to the hospital alone. Twenty minutes later my sister entered my room and when she saw me she fell to her knees and started crying because I looked terrible. She sat next to me and we talked about what had happened and what we should tell my mom. We were afraid how she would take it since she is fragile because she is a heart patient. We decided that we had to tell everyone.
At this time I started to react to the accident emotionally. I would wake up every couple of hours with drenched with sweat and in the middle of a panic attack. At times I would feel extremely depressed thinking what the future had in store for me after this. At the same time I was strong and determined to get through this ordeal. In a matter of few hours all my family and friends found out what had happened to me. When my mom found out and came to the hospital and saw me, she walked slowly towards me and hugged me. I could feel her heart racing and beating out of her chest. I consoled her while she consoled me. My family flew in to see me from London, New York, Chicago and different parts of California. My friends came in from all over. Even my Biology teacher came to see me. Saying I was a great student, He gave me an A even though I was unable to finish the class. Over two hundred people came to see me at the hospital. It was overwhelming to see how many people really cared about me and loved and supported me. The nurses were saying that they hadn’t ever seen so many visitors for a patient. I felt very fortunate.
The second day at the hospital, a group of doctors came in and said that I was lucky I had no internal injuries or head injuries except for a few broken bones. I took a deep sigh of relief and thanked the lord. Friends that were there with me at the scene of the accident told me that when they saw how bad the impact I was hit with was, they thought I had passed away instantly, but remarkably I was still alive. A couple of my friends that witnessed the incident were also emotionally devastated and could not sleep for weeks.
Later that day my sister rushed into the hospital room with her cell phone in her hand and my dad on the other line. I have never heard or seen my dad emotional but clearly on the phone he could not sustain his emotions and that made me speechless. He was aware of the extent of my injuries because he recently retired for a career in the medical field. He told me that he was going to be on the next flight over to see me. After that, I fell asleep and I suddenly woke up sweating and breathing hard my girl friend, sister and mom ran to get the nurse, I was having a panic attack. The nurses put cold towels on me to bring my temperature down. Due to the extreme pain I was in they also had me on pain medications twenty four hours.
August 3rd, the day of the surgery, hours before it, the finance staff of the hospital approached me in regards to how I was going to pay for the surgery since I had no insurance. I got the feeling that they were hesitant in operating on me unless they had some financial grantee from me and my family. That put a lot of stress on me and my family especially knowing that the incident was not my fault. However the nurses got me ready for the surgery and had me sign waivers. Then I had the sedation team explain me how I was going to be put to sleep then all I remember was going into the operation room and looking up at these big cauliflower looking lights and then I was out. The next thing I remember is waking up in my original hospital room with all my family and friends around me. They brought me so many flowers and teddy bears I could not resist but to have a big smile on my face. I stayed at the hospital a total of seven long days. I still could not walk or move around without the help of at least two people as the day came to go home. A team of psychiatric doctors came to evaluate me to see if I was suicidal or extremely depressed after such a traumatic accident. I told them I loved life and was far from giving up.
I could not go to my own apartment, even though that’s where I really wanted to go, because I was not allowed to climb stairs yet and I lived on the second floor. Also I would need constant care in order to recover. So I ended up staying at my sister’s house for a few months and went for physical therapy every day. It was a struggle but I was determined to get it done. One Monday morning I got a call from my lawyer who said the hit and run suspect was caught and that she was under the influence of alcohol when she hit me that made me furious because she had turned my fine life in to a physical, emotional and financial disaster and on top of that she showed no remorse or responsibility by fleeing the scene. As a result of her indifference I have three metal plates in my body with fifteen screws that I have to live with for the rest of my life and will not be able to be as active in outdoor activities as I used to be. I still have pain to this day and don’t have full range of motion almost a year later.
After the accident I see life differently and I am more cautious of my surroundings. I am a victim of a DUI incident involving an accident; thankfully I am not a statistic for a fatal death due to DUI. I have been a staunch supporter against drunken drivers because unfortunately I have had friends who passed away due to drunk drivers. This experience has made me even stronger in my belief that zero tolerance should be used against people who drive under the influence. Laws against people who drive drunk should be implemented at all times because of all the fatal casualties and the traumatic effects it has on victims and their family member’s. It’s not only a physical effect but an emotional and financial one as well.
The statistics for DUI related deaths are on the rise in America, and fatal injuries are overwhelmingly high because of someone’s foolish judgment to drink and drive and devastate innocent lives and their families.
posted by Ahmed L. at
11:46 AM
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