on getting into car accidents ... in a foreign country

last week, i got into a car accident while doing my run to platinum status at the starwood preferred guest program. i had 17 stays for the year, and needed 8 more. so i booked an 8-stay mattress run between seattle and portland for the week in order to hit it. i had completed two stays in seattle, then was off to portland. en route to portland, i was involved in a car accident.

i've separated this story into two posts. the first post is the mechanics of the accident. the next part is the insurance portion, the costs, and how i dealt with things when back in canada.

1) the mechanics of it all
the speed limit was 60 mph, or roughly 100 km/hr. i was driving in the middle lane and another car was driving in the lane to the right of me. there were 4 lanes in total. i do checks regularly, and knew that there was a car behind me but no one on the left.


this particular day, the car on the right was overlapping mine by about half a car. this meant that i couldn't see his tail lights, couldn't see him signal, didn't know any of his intentions. and i must have been in his blind spot, because he quickly moved into my lane as if to lane change. if i hit the brakes suddenly, i would have caused an accident for the person behind me. if i let him hit me, there would be an accident by definition. but if i quickly maneuvered to the empy left lane, that would have worked. and that's what i tried.

but there's something strange about sudden, panicked lane changes while going at 100 km/hr. you end up losing control of the car. i was swerving for tense seconds, right and left and right and left, and then it finally just stuck left. there was a high concrete median separating the southbound traffic that i was on from the northbound traffic, and i was heading right for it.

i can't say that i was scared or that my life was flashing through my eyes. i feel like that's almost made-for-tv. i knew that i was going to hit the median -- that was inevitable. but i had a mental checklist: 1) i was wearing my safety belt, 2) the car has airbags, and 3) this happens all the time on television. in my mind, i was thinking that it would be a simple love tap.

front driver's side impact, sudden twist, rear passenger side impact.

i didn't lose consciousness, i didn't feel pain. it just felt like a hard bump with anti-climatic sounds. there was no shattering of windshields. the airbags deployed somewhere in that process. they weren't those marshmallow-like bags that you see on the crash test dummy commercials. they were these hard cloth-like bags, which had deflated somewhat soon afterwards. there was smoke in the car

and there i was, busy traffic rushing by, two deployed airbags, and crinkled car. oh, and the other guy drove away, probably none the wiser that he should have shoulder checked.

2) on exiting the vehicle
i'm a doctor by training. i didn't hit my head, there was no loss of consciousness. my hearing was blunted a bit, but it was coming back quickly. i could feel and move all four limbs. no c-spine pain. i quickly palpated for tenderness along the c-spine and all the way down. satisfied, i grabbed my phone, and my mifi and carefully exited the car. another driver had stopped to make sure i was okay. an off duty police officer had stopped and waited with the witness and i. the state trooper came by and took our details. he didn't issue me a ticket, so i assume that i wasn't going to be hit with an at fault claim. and then the tow truck came and my 14 year old car went to the impound lot.

while waiting for the state trooper to come, using my mifi (mobile internet hotspot specifically for america), i started texting people. the mobile internet battery only lasts so long, as does the phone's, so i had to choose who to text carefully. luckily, i had an amazing friend in seattle. he picked me up from the impound lot, handed me a diet coke (more for reassurance and comfort, rather than to prevent hypovolemic shock), and figured out my medical plan.

3) medical care in america
my employer gives me free travel medical benefits that are included in its health and dental plans. i had called their claims number on my friend's phone (because they want you to call them first), but they simply told me that if it was an emergency, then to just get the care first and contact them again later. i figured that a 100 km/hr collision, a bruised up knee, and right upper quandrant tenderness would qualify as an emergency. but it wasn't emergency enough to think that i needed to go to an emergency room.

my friend got me in to see his family practice group. it's apparently a more expensive clinic, and hence the lack of wait. this was all being covered by my benefits, so i really didn't care. interestingly, they charged $135 for this appointment, while the equivalent billing fee in the province of british columbia was just ~$33. and it was a nurse practitioner who saw me as well, which would have normally cost the system even less.

he waited with me while we shuttled to get an urgent x-ray of the knee and leg (which, after the physical exams, i was pretty confident they weren't broken ... but if it's free ...), and an ultrasound of the abdomen (i've never had any of those before). they were all normal.

now coming up to a week later, my knee, while bruised, is better. there isn't any pain when walking anymore. the neck, which initially felt so strained that it was difficult to lift my head off the bed unsupported, is completely back to normal. no whiplash so far. my rib still hurts -- it's most likely cracked, which i expect will take some time to heal up.

4) and the unexpected night in seattle
my friend was kind enough to look after dinner and the evening for me. the main starwood hotels were all full for the night, so my friends were kind enough to let me stay at their place for the evening. trying to figure out how i was going to get back to vancouver on the cheap, i learned about the joys of the bolt bus and even signed up for bolt rewards. i found my way down to the king street station in downtown seattle, and boarded the bus that took me to the main street / terminal station in vancouver. all for $17 one way. clean, power plugs, wifi, not crowded at all. it was a comfortable ride up.

oh, and there was also the comfort of knowing that if a car were to decide to merge into our lane without doing an appropriate shoulder check, well, they would be the ones with a problem, not me.