Thank you for paramedics!

This is a small tribute to paramedics!

I thought I would add this photo to my blip folio. It obviously wasn’t taken by me, since I was being carefully extracted from my car. Yep, that’s me lying on the gurney behind the paramedic.

This started out as a lovely day. My friend and I were going hiking on the Rubicon Point trail at Lake Tahoe. We were both excited since she was visiting and had only been to Lake Tahoe a couple of times. As we were driving down the road, I spotted two cyclists up ahead entering a crosswalk. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a vehicle about 1/2 mile behind me. As I came to a stop, one of the cyclists had already gone through the crosswalk. The other cyclist had not entered the crosswalk, but was looking behind me. About the moment, we were struck from behind. As I found out later, the driver was going about 50mph when she hit me. Thankfully, both my friend and I were wearing seatbelts.

Because I lost sensation in my hands and feet, the paramedics took me to the trauma center in the ambulance. The lead paramedic told me to not move at all and they would get me out of the car. After wrapping my head, neck and strapping a back board to me, they maneuvered me out of the car. It was really fascinating!

My injuries weren’t serious - no surgery or broken bones - but lots of sprains involving head, neck, shoulder and back. My friend also was injured. Thankfully we are both going through lots of physical therapy and recovering, and there were no injuries to the other driver and her friends.

But, my lovely car was destroyed. It was an older car, but in perfect shape. I was sad when I was told it couldn’t be repaired. So, I now have a new car and unfortunately a car payment again.

We are really grateful because this accident could have been so much worse!