Automotive

I said I'd keep my posts interesting, and this might be one of the more incredible ones.

Last Thursday, I got hit by a car.

Here's what happened:

A group of UTS students - Bonnie, Awa, Anja, Erica, Nizam and myself - met up for lunch in Glebe, a trendy neighborhood not far from UTS. The weather was horrible - pouring rain - even though it had been pretty sunny throughout the week. We decided to brave the rain and head over to Paddy's Market for some light shopping and cheap groceries. We walked down Broadway with me and Nizam walking further behind, deep in a passionate conversation about how San Francisco's politics and ecofriendliness compared to Sydney's (dorks much?). We had just crossed Jones St and were approaching UTS when, out of nowhere, a BANG sounded behind us. Before Nizam and I could turn around, a white sedan sideswiped past us and knocked me to the ground, spun 180 degrees over the slippery ground, hit an Asian couple who had been walking in front of us, and finally came to rest on the side steps of the main UTS building.

It was insane: people starting running towards the scene, pulling out cell phones and yelling for the police as sirens wailed in the distance. I got up shakily, clamped a wad of tissues onto my bleeding arm (I had a deep cut on my elbow - thank goodness I carry so much random shit in my purse) and walked towards my friends, my swollen knee throbbing. The man who was hit, a young University of Sydney student from Hong Kong, was bleeding from his head and kneeling over his wife, who lay motionless near the car. Apparently she'd been hit and thrown against the building, so she was in a lot of pain. Paramedics arrived quickly and took her away in an ambulance, with me and the man in a second ambulance. Despite the situation, the paramedics were actually quite humorous, and because they were on strike that week, the ambulance ride was free!

We stayed in the hospital for a good four hours (my new friends are absolute saints) while I got stitches in my elbow and waited to get my knee x-rayed. The woman, being in critical condition, was whisked away to the operating rooms (I've since learned that she survived, but has several fractured bones throughout her body.) The man was bandaged up and sat in the waiting room with some friends who arrived sooner after we got there. The whole experience was terrifying and left us shaken up for hours, but what really helped was talking to each other. Had it not been for my friends (especially my flatmate Awa, who rode in the ambulance and stayed with me the entire time), I probably wouldn't have mentally recovered as quickly.

Physically, I'm pretty much fine - my stitches came out on Tuesday, and most of the swelling on my knee and hips has gone down (thanks to the bags of frozen vegetables I laid on for hours.) The university has been amazing: I've received several calls and emails from folks in student services, the counseling center, and the international office, plus a personal visit from a couple housing people who brought me a teddy bear and a box of chocolate truffles. I've never felt so supported by a school in my life, so this was overwhelming but wonderful

The driver, a punkass guy who looked about 20 or so, is being charged on two counts by police thanks to the accounts of 16 witnesses. The cop told me he'd been driving about 80 mph...no wonder he lost control on the rain-soaked road.

My friends have since tried to convince me that not all Aussie drivers are crazy, but I'm starting to think they're worse here than in San Francisco - something I never imagined could be possible.

See? Told you I wouldn't bore you.

• UPDATE: 18 June 2009: I attended the court hearing today as a subpoenaed witness and the driver was charged with two counts: reckless driving and causing bodily harm (turns out the woman who'd been hit suffered four fractured vertebrae and a fractured pelvis - ouch. She was on crutches for three months and in a back brace for six. She still suffers frequent back pain.) His penalties were: an $800 fine, loss of his green-P license for a year (which means he didn't have his full license yet), and a strike on his criminal record.

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