On Saturday, Aug. 1, Bill and I arrived in little Oberweissenbrunn, Germany, to visit our dear friend Gerlinde. After a brief visit at her apartment, we headed over toward old East Germany to see one of the checkpoints and a sculpture garden dedicated to the reunification, visited an East German city in the process of getting better since the wall came down and then headed home to Gerlinde's apartment. It was a lovely, interesting day. We stopped for dinner on the way and continued homeward.
In the village of Sondheim, everything changed. Gerlinde was driving the speed limit on the priority road when suddenly, from the left, came a speeding car immediately into our path. From first sight to impact was no more than a second. We hit the car on the passenger side and pushed it across the intersection. The air bags exploded in a cloud of dust and smoke filled the car. The noise was awful. Within seconds Bill was out and pulling me out of the front seat. I felt paralyzed from the impact of seat belt and airbag which was about three feet across. By this time everyone from the houses had poured out to help people. Bill and I were laid on the grass and Gerlinde was okay enough to be walking around, perhaps because her airbag was a lot smaller and she had the steering wheel to brace on. Four ambulances and a helicopter came in minutes, along with three doctors and all the EMT folks. I know this from others because I could only see stars. Both drivers registered zero on the breath test. The other driver told the police he had stopped at the yield sign but we all swear that could not have been the case. Gerlinde heard a young boy say they had many accidents at that intersection, but never one with a helicopter. The fact Bill and I are American spread quickly and I heard several people talk about it around me. A nurse trainee from the house nearby was really nice to us as were others.
Bill was taken in the helicopter to a new hospital in Meiningen, the old East German town we had visited earlier that day. They thought he had internal injuries and put him in intensive care. Gerlinde and I were taken to Bad Neustadt to a very nice modern hospital. We were both x-rayed and Gerlinde sent home. All this began around 7:30 pm and it was after midnight before everyone was tucked into a room wherever they were. One lady from the other car was hospitalized, too, same place I was. I had spine x-rays the next day, and later a CT scan. My right knee and left foot took hits and were x-rayed. Fortunately, none of us have anything broken. Our bruises were extensive and dark across our chests and stomachs from the seatbelts and airbag and we found more every day on other body parts. Bill had no internal injuries, thank goodness, stayed in the hospital until Monday and I got out the next day. Gerlinde and her family were our guardian angels through it all and folks from work have been calling as the word got out. Our good friend Wally drove the three hours from Kaiserslautern on Sunday and helped drive Gerlinde between the two hospitals which were about 20 miles apart before driving back home that same evening. He also took some things home for us from our heavily packed car.
After getting out of the hospital, we stayed at Gerlinde's place moving slowly, comparing aches, pains and bruises. The police came to interview us and the insurance declared her car dead. An article ran in the local paper with a photo of the crash scene and cars. Gerlinde, though covered in big bruises, constantly took care of us, great friend that she is. The day after I got out of the hospital, Bill drove us to see the intersection where it all happened. We quickly met one of the folks who helped us on the scene and she was very eager to share information with us including giving us a copy of the newspaper article. We were very surprized to see no skid marks on the pavement in the intersection and a total of four Yield signs at the intersection where the car had come out in front of us.
We were three or so hours away from Kaiserslautern and needed to see if Bill could drive us home the next day. I still had my cast on my left arm from the Italy experience so I couldn't help drive. This was the week it was supposed to come off. We left the next day, driving slowly and stopping a couple of times. We checked in with Gerlinde by phone at the halfway point to reassure her we were okay and again when we reached home. She was so relieved we were okay that she started crying right away. She felt like it was her fault, but I assured her it was not.
The next day, my cast gets removed and I try out my driving skills in the village for the first time in two months. Doctor appointments and therapy sessions became a part of our lives until last week when we declared ourselves tired of it all and stopped going.
All in all it was an experience we do not wish to repeat and are all grateful to be up and around no matter how painful we feel and funny we look. As I write this, we all still have after effects from the crash; lingering aches and pains, lingering thoughts of the sight and sound of the crash, lingering fears of other cars on the road.
