Lindsay Cure-Hendrickson

Lindsay Cure-Hendrickson, Bits and Pieces

I was sixteen years old when my friends and I were hit by a drunk driver. It was winter, and we had just finished working on a school project. I was on the way back to my car that was only a little ways away, so I didn’t put my seat belt on. I looked to my right and all I saw were two headlights flying at me. I was sitting in the passenger's seat, the point of impact. The car had spun around and somehow I ended up in the ditch next to a fire hydrant. I remember thinking how bad it would have hurt if I had hit that fire hydrant, not realizing I had just been hit by a car! I couldn’t breath or move, and only heard the screams of my friends who were still in the car. The next thing I know I am in an ambulance with people poking at me, then at the hospital with people poking at me, and to this day I only remember bits and pieces of the experience. Eleven years later, memories get triggered when I watch movies, or my friends or mother tell me something. I never saw the man who hit us...or his car. I don’t even know his name. What I do know is that he was drunk, and he’d already had his license taken away for prior DUIs. I don’t know how much jail time he did, if any. I was lucky enough to go home with no broken bones, but every muscle in my body was pulled from being hit by that car, and I couldn’t walk right for weeks. I have suffered emotionally through the years when memories are triggered. To this day my neck and shoulders give me trouble. I have had kidney problems since the accident. It was hard to carry my children in the last stages of pregnancy because my pelvis was damaged. When I saw the photos of the car I was in, I wanted to throw up. Eleven years later, I am still angry. I am angry because of what this man put my mother through that night when she got that dreaded phone call. I am angry because I am still affected everyday by my “minor” injuries and my little memories. I am also very thankful and feel very lucky that I survived. Too many have died because of the carelessness of drunk drivers.