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.