Author: Brenda Plascencia

The trauma of the wreck was long lasting and it stayed with Danielle and me for months, maybe even years. We know seatbelts saved our lives, but they could not save us from the trauma. Danielle sustained small cuts on her face and was okay physically because her car seat did its job; however, the trauma caused her be very clingy. She insisted she be held all the time and would cry if I set her down. At a healthy twenty pounds, she was well over the five-pound guidance from the doctor, but that did not change her behavior nor my need to pick up and hold my sweet baby girl. For a few nights, she insisted on sleeping on my chest on top of her baby sister while I was trying to recuperate from whiplash and shoulder pain. Holding her close helped with the nightmares.  

For me, driving became a chore as I struggled with anxiety driving through intersections for months even as a passenger, my heart raced. I credit my seatbelt for keeping me safely inside the car, which we know is vital in a wreck. Although it took years to fully recover from the neck and shoulder pain, our beautiful daughter Angilee, was born healthy a few months later. Well a little early due to a slippery incident where we ended up in a ditch in the middle of nowhere with only a farmhouse in the distance, but that is another story all together. That time it really was amniotic fluid, but I digress.

I do not believe Angilee would be here today if I had not been wearing a seatbelt. We learned a very important message that night about seatbelts and how they should be worn in the city and not only on the highway, as was our previous practice. Even though Danielle always rode buckled up in her car seat, Tod and I were only wearing our seat belts that night because we had been on the military base picking her up from the babysitter. Seatbelts were required on base and we never took them off when leaving base, because, why bother. I shudder to think of what the results of that night would have been if we had not buckled up. I became such an advocate for seat belts after that night that Angilee’s friend once said to her other friends as they got into our car, “You better buckle up or Angilee’s Mom will hit you!” In my defense, if she had been buckled in when I turned and reached back to check on her, I would not have been able to reach her! It was an accident, but why correct teens when talking about buckling up!

Oh yea, remember how we thought we heard they had caught the driver of the tricked out 1960’s car the while we were in the ambulance? Turns out, they never did find the person to hit us that night.

“Labor and Delivery! Why Labor and Delivery?” I shouted as we swiftly moved through the dark hallway in the hospital through the Labor and Delivery doors. My fears seemed to of fallen on deaf ears as no one seemed to want to answer my questions, “Why Labor and Delivery? Am I having this baby?” Fear swelled inside me as I rode along realizing it was too early. The baby could not survive yet. The medical staff moved quickly to test the liquid that soaked my pants. It became clear they also did not know why I was wet and my baby’s life depended on finding out quickly. After several very stressful minutes, the results came back negative for amniotic fluid. I just wet my pants, which was embarrassing, but I have never been so thankful. However, they could not find the baby’s heartbeat, so the fear never completely lifted. They told us it was not uncommon to have trouble finding a heartbeat after a traumatic experience, but that was not as comforting as they had hoped.

The shape of the steering wheel started to show up on my chest as a red and purple bruise. The seat belt did not stop me from hitting the steering wheel, but it did keep me inside the car. After x-raying my neck, with nothing broken, just a little bruising, aches, and pain, even though they never found the baby’s heartbeat, they sent me home with a neck brace and advised me not to pick up anything over five pounds. Defeated and concerned, my family and I walked out of Labor and Delivery doors and through the maze of dark hallways until we reached an outside door. As we stepped out into the cool crisp night with nowhere to go and no car to go there, we sat down on the stairs and Tod said, “Now what?”

Stay tuned for the next installment.

Our faith in humankind shaken, we stood alone in the dark. Frustrated and scared with the smell of gas and oil mixed with the cool crisp night air, I shivered as I realized my pants were wet. Puzzled, I wondered why I was wet. Right then, I heard Tod yell back to the man in the second story window, “I will shut up—when you call 911!” The man said he would as he pushed his window closed with a bang leaving my family alone again in the dark of night. Exhausted with dread in our hearts standing by our new ‘used’ car that was ripped apart by the impact of the wreak leaving us stranded, the pain from the wreck was starting to set into my neck, back, shoulder—well, really everywhere as I stood there cold and wet—fear filled my heart.

Just when we thought no one was ever going to help, a big man came running up towards us out of breath. “Are you okay?” he asked as he shared he watched the car that hit us driving fast going through several red flashing lights gaining speed before hitting us. As the car spun around and drove back past him, he could not make out the license plate because it was too dark. He described the car as an off white tricked out 1960’s car with a full chrome grill with a headlights set inside the grill speeding the wrong way up a one way street. 

Once the police officer arrived, he talked to the eyewitness first. When the police officer realized I was five months pregnant and possibly noticing that my pants were soaked, the police radioed for an ambulance. They loaded my family safely into the back of the ambulance. I was finally starting to warm up while lying on the stretcher under a blanket as the medic was checking my vitals. My daughter sat silently staring at me wrapped in a blanket in Tod’s arms. I could feel her fear. I too was terrified wondering why my pants were wet. Was it amniotic fluid? What was going to happen to my unborn baby? I was wearing a seat belt. Could that have hurt my baby and tore the amniotic sack? I was too scared to ask or tell Tod about my fear, so I sat quietly as we sped towards the hospital. We heard over the radio that they had caught the driver. My husband and I made eye contact and smiled as it gave us some glimmer of hope that the person that caused this horrifying experience would be held responsible.

Read more of this story next week.