Jason was driving, I was passenger in the front and Rachel was passenger in the back behind the drivers seat. We were on highway 120 30 minutes from Thermopolis and 30 minutes from Meeteetse when a deer jumped on the road in front of us. Jason swerved to miss it and we ended up in the ditch (note: when we tell people this story they say oh your supposed to just hit the deer. My response to that is if we had I'd be dead. There is no way my Jetta was going to just take that deer out without it coming through the windshield and hitting me.) A witness says we rolled front end over trunk 2-3 times before stopping upright. I'm not sure if I believe that because looking at the damage to my car, there is no damage to the front or rear bumpers and that would take an enourmous amount of air and speed.
Anyway, when the car stopped Jason was out immediately to Rachel who was ok except that she hit her face on something and it cut above her eye and left her with a black eye. Jason didn't know until he got to the hospital that he also had a black eye and his shins had gone into the dash scraping them up. I however had broken my right collar bone from my seatbelt keeping me from going through the windshield.
Now I agree that you are always supposed to wear your seat belt, and believe me Jason and Rachel caught hell from the cops, the hospital and every other person we ran into for not wearing theirs. But for me, I'm glad this time that they weren't. Both of their wounds have pretty much healed up but I'm going into surgery and I'm positive if Rachel had her seatbelt on too she would have broken bones instead of just a black eye. (This is my little warning to everyone that if you bring up the seat belt thing to either of them you might be the one with the black eye. I'm just saying.)
Anyway because we were in the middle of nowhere both cities we were close to dispatched ambulances to us, we had 5 show up. When they arrived Rachel was sitting in one of the cops cars with the heater on high all wrapped up in a blanket because she had started to go into shock so Jason had carried her over and put her in there. Jason was running around trying to help and I was sititng in my seat still, not moving. I knew my collar bone had broken, I felt it pop but while I sat there waiting my neck had started to cramp up pulling my head down to my shoulder. That was probably the worst part of the pain at the scene. The EMTs put me in a collar, gave me an IV- which really hurt, and strapped me to a board and drove back to Thermopolis. On the way one of the EMT's got a cell phone call. After he said hello he looked at me and said, "Are you related to the Christophersons?" I laughed, only in Wyoming would my relatives be able to find me in the middle of nowhere after a car accident. I said yes and he held the phone up to my ear. I told Myron Christopherson, who was the one that had called, to find Nolan Dobson and tell him I would be at the Thermopolis hospital in 10 minutes. Jason had called Dad at the scene and told him already but just in case I figured I'd spread the word through the extended family too. I didn't know this at the time but Jason and Rachel had also been put in an ambulance and strapped down and were caravanning behind me.
We get to the hospital and one of the nurses asks me what my moms name is and if she can give out information about me. I said yes, I guess Mom had been calling for 45 minutes and knew more then the nurse did anyway. So I get my xrays and my blood work done and I hear Jason and Rachel come in but I can't see them because I'm still strapped to the board. I hear my Dad's voice, and then see him walk up next to my bed his eyes all red and I said in my mom voice, "Have you been crying?" He shrugged and said, "You know me, I'm a softy." Then my Aunt Louann and Uncle Larry walked up and filled me in on Jason and Rachel.
I am glad Louann and Larry were there, Larry is an OBGYN so they were watching the doctor and nurses making sure they did their job right. The board they had me strapped to started to really hurt because it was causing me to lose circulation to parts of my body but the hospital couldn't take me off it until the radiologist cleared that my neck had no injury to it. I ended up moving my body around underneath the straps anyway to get blood flowing to the parts that hurt.
Anyway, so much happened during all of this I could go into tons of detail.
Ok so they release all three of us and give us all painkillers, which save my life because I can't hardly move my body before I take one it hurts too much even today. But there was one big problem for me, they didn't have a figure 8 brace to hold my shoulders back to keep my collarbone aligned. They did give me a sling though. (According to the orthopedic surgeon there is no literature out there that says a brace is better then a sling which is why it wasn't a big deal to the hospital that I didn't have a brace.)
The next morning we were troopers and showed up for Grandpas funeral service but had to leave early as Jason, Rach and I were hurting and really needed more sleep. After everyone else got home from the services I called the Cody Hosptial Emergency Room, because we were staying in Cody not Thermopolis, and asked if they had a brace. They did and we went in and got it. However, the girl that put the brace on me I think wasn't really a nurse because she didn't pull my shoulders back or anything so I ended up wearing the brace kind of loose and incorrectly the rest of the week. None of us knew any better at the time.
The plan originally was for Rach, Jason and I to come home Sunday night so we didn't miss work or school but because neither Jason or I was in any shape to drive we stayed in Wyoming until Wednesday and then rode home with Dad and Chan.
Thursday morning I go in to my doctor here in Utah for a follow up and I tell him I'm a little concerned about the medical treatment I got in Wyoming because, bless their hearts they were really nice, but something about my body just didn't feel right. My shoulder had like a sunken in feeling to it. He had my shoulder xrayed and guess what. The bone pieces are seperated by like and inch and hadn't been doing any healing while I was in Wyoming.
My doctor sent me to an orthopedic surgeon who said yep you need surgery or that will never heal. So I go in for surgery next Wednesday to get my shoulder cut open so they can put a metal plate and screws in to hold my bones together and then in four months I get to go back and have the plate and screws removed.
That is it so far. It's such a big event that this is only really a summary of everything that went on which is why it's kind of impersonal.
I'm grateful for the way the whole situation played out, being in Wyoming where I'm related to everyone, having my doctor uncle with me, only being an hour from Cody, not rolling on the sides of the car, having full coverage on the car and good health insurance.
