Well, it has been one crazy weekend that I am glad is over. My eldest child Matt, was a passenger in a car on Thursday night (school does not resume here until Wed 1/10) that was involved in an accident...HE IS OK!!!. Luckily ALL passengers in the vehicle were OK!
Here are the details...
Matt and a few buddies were out driving around (cause that's what teenagers do...) and took a curve too fast. They were in the hills and the roads were a little slippery as it had been raining earlier in the day. They were in a 13 year old Jeep Cherokee. Matt was in the back seat on the passenger side. The car careened over the side of the road and rolled 3-4 times (side over side) landing on a driveway of a house approximately 100 feet below. One boy was ejected from the car (no seatbelt) and the remaining three stay inside the vehicle. Miraculously all four boys suffered only minor injuries, including the boy that was ejected (he bruised his spine and needed a couple of stitches in his forehead). Matt retells that he was certain that he was not going to live to see his 17th birthday. We were summoned to the hospital around 11:30pm (I am shaking as I write this, as it was the scariest phone call a parent could ever receive) that our son was in a rollover auto accident and he was being "transported to the hospital". Unfortunately, my husband was fighting a nasty flu with a high fever that night and the thought of being worried about him and Matt was too much to handle, so I went alone. When I arrived at the hospital, Matt was in a room surrounded by medical personnel assessing his injuries. I caught my breath and approached his side and found him conscious and alert. He was quite a mess as you could image (and his new jacket had been cut away from his body...which seemed to be his biggest complaint). Their concern was focused on a large contusion on his abdomen (apparently caused by the seat belt). They did an abdominal ultrasound, followed by a CT scan and a chest and head x-ray. All were normal and there were no internal injuries. He had a couple of stitches in his right arm, lots of scrapes, numerous bruises and pieces of glass lodged in his head and arms. The sheriff was there and he said that when he got to the accident site, he was surprised that there were no fatalities. Apparently the car resembled crumpled paper. Thank god there were no drugs or alcohol associated with the accident, simply an inexperienced kid driving too fast.
The lesson here....laws are put into place for a reason. Teens are issued a provisional license for a reason...they need time behind the wheel without the distractions of others (especially teens). California law states "new drivers under the age of 18 are not allowed to have other passengers in the car with them under the age of 21 for the first 12 months of having their drivers license". Unfortunately, the police don't seem to enforce this law, only the parents (and not well...I am guilty of this too...but NO LONGER). The driver of the car only had his license for 2 months. ALL the boys knew better and made poor choices. So, Matt's wings have been clipped! He now has a 9pm curfew, and in addition, if he is caught driving another person in his car or is a passenger in a car with someone who holds a provisional license he will loose his license for 6 months. The teens went to the accident site yesterday to pick-up the debris left by the accident, I understand it was quite sobering and the teens barely said a word. The silver lining in all of this is, ALL the kids are alive and scared out of their minds. Hopefully they have all learned something from this experience; the outcome could have been much more serious.
I will be SOOOOO HAPPY when school resumes on Wednesday. If I could, I would bubble wrap my teenagers and lock them in a play room until they are 18!
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