Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I was driving to work. I was fairly new to the job at the time. I was on my way. I was
driving down. I was about to get to an intersection. This lady had been tailgating me for awhile.
I wasn’t paying any mind to her. She can pass, she can tailgate, whatever, that’s
her business. But right as I was about to go through the intersection, my light was
green, I saw an ambulance coming down from the right, and we were both about to go through
the intersection at the same time. Their sirens were on, their lights were on, they were obviously
on their way to save somebody’s life. So I did the right thing. I stopped, slammed
on my brakes so that not only would I not hit the ambulance, but so that the ambulance
could be on their way. And right as I slammed on my brakes, I looked in the rearview mirror
the last second I realized, oh my god she was tailgating me. Right then, smash, I watched
her hit me. Oddly enough that same ambulance actually turned around because the accident
looked fatal and I suppose it actually was kind of fatal in a way, they actually turned
around and they came and they took me straight from the driver’s seat to the hospital.
And I found out later they actually have to do that because the accident was bad enough.
They immediately put a big thing around my neck because I wasn’t allowed to move it.
The doctor said I had some herniated discs in my neck that it could possibly scar me
for life, I might need surgery. It was very scary. I was 18 at the time, 17 I think turning
18. It was very scary to be so young and so, oh my god what’s going to happen, I need
my neck. I had done some research and knew that Dr. Smith was on a board, very well known,
very well respected, and he explained to me about AIMIS and what I loved he was just,
he was so caring. He actually took the time, sat down with me, and he actually cared about
what happened to me and made sure that it was, it wasn’t his decision, you’re going
to do this, it doesn’t matter, he made sure it was my decision. He made sure I was informed.
I knew everything before I was able to make the decision myself.
It took awhile because the accident was not my fault, it was lawyers and all this stuff,
and that’s why it took the three years, two and a half to three years for me to actually
get the surgery, but right away when Dr. Smith explained the surgery to me I knew that was
what I wanted to do.
I was terrified to think that I was going to this brand new country I had never been
to before to get surgery on my neck and I was just shaking in my boots for lack of a
better term, but they were just right off the bat I started emailing. I spoke with AIMIS
through emails, and they were always very nice, very we’ll take care of it, if you
have any questions, even the smallest thing. I stepped off and it was like I was in paradise.
There were trees everywhere, and it was beautiful. The weather was amazing, but the thing that
really struck me the most was that everybody was so nice and that just amazed me. You know
here, people are nice, they’re friendly, cordial, whatever, but there people really
were, you know, how’s your day going, how are you. Everybody from the servers to the
hospital attendants to just people walking down the street. It was a completely different
culture and I didn’t want to leave. I wasn’t prepared to come back home.