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I got hit by a truck tonight
I am okay. Mostly.
Today was actually pretty good up until that point, I think. I finally met one of my students who I thought would be awesome and they are awesome. All of my classes went well. I was a little sad because I waited around for a student of mine to get out of a homestay counselling session, and it took so long I ended up leaving, but whatever.
I went to the Tokyo Dome and got tickets to see a Giants-Dragons game in a few weeks, and I got some more baseball cards and a magazine at Yamashita, and I got kaiten sushi for dinner, and I went home. All normal so far...
...watched the Giants-Tigers game, saw the Tigers win, and decided to go see Rush Hour 3 over at Movix. Still normal...
I biked down to Ario, watched the movie. (It was GOOD. I still love Jackie Chan.) I was riding my bike home up Road 35 around 11pm, thinking about how I'd write an LJ entry about having a pretty good day. I started crossing this one wide street near Nishi-Kawaguchi station. The walk light was green in my direction. I was riding, and...
...this car carrier was turning left...
...right INTO ME...!?!
It hit me on its left side (my right side), I went flying off my bike, my front bike tire went under the truck. I was just lying there on the street for a minute in sheer disbelief about what had just happened. MY BIKE WAS DESTROYED was all I could think for a few seconds.
Then I noticed there was something wet on the ground.... and I also noticed that there was a big wet spot on my pants leg, around my left knee and around my right shin. It was, uh, you know, MY BLOOD. I got a nasty-ass cut on my left knee from hitting the ground. I also got a pretty big bruise/gash down my right leg.
A lady came up to me and was like "Daijobu? Daijobu desu ka?" and suddenly I'm like OH FUCK I'M IN JAPAN and I just start crying. "Daijobu ja nain darou... jitensha wa... ashi wa itai... WAAAAAAAAAH"
A guy comes up to me and apologizes about ninety times and then I realize what he's saying is thst he was the truck driver. He and the lady say they will call the police. They do. We are fortunately literally about 2 blocks from the Kawaguchi police station on road 35, so police show up pretty quickly. The first thing they ask (in Japanese) is "Can you understand Japanese?" and I go "I can but not very well," and they ask what happened; I say just something like "bike accident, leg hurts" and the man and woman explain the accident. The policeman asks if I want to go to a hospital and I'm thinking FUCK, A HOSPITAL, OH GOD but I say I don't know. They say they'll call an ambulance anyway to take a look at me, and they do. I'm still really concerned about my bike and EVERYONE is like "Stop worrying about your bike, your body and health are much more important!!" and I explained it was a new bike and I ride it all the time and... they were like "really, stop worrying!"
The ambulance guys look at my legs, the blood, and go "we really should take you to the hospital," and I'm like "do they have any people who speak English?" "Well... no..." "Oh, um..." The guy told me a story about how he had been in Australia and couldn't speak English and got in an accident, but everything worked out okay, so stop worrying. They took my blood pressure -- several times -- and they put a bandage on my knee and stuff, and eventually I tried calling Sam but didn't get through, but did get through to Eri. She was like "DEANNA? WHAT IS GOING ON? IT'S 11:30PM," and I said "Eri, I'm in an ambulance. I got hit by a truck." "WHAT?" "Yeah." Apparently she convinced them to take me to the hospital and then convinced me to go...
...EXCEPT it turned out that none of the nearby hospitals could deal with me at the moment. No joke. So the ambulance guys say they're going to take me to some far away hospital and I'm just like "wait WHAT?" and they asked if I had any friends I could call, and I explained Eri lives in Kichijouji, and so I called Sam again and this time I got through. But, fortunately before I had to ask Sam to pleeeeease come help me out, the ambulance guys apparently talked to the cops, and the cops said they could come fetch me from the hospital out in the middle of nowhere. Whew. Sam talked to them a bit and explained they would go take X-Rays and would try to talk to me in Japanese REALLY simply and slowly, and to call him if there were any problems.
Amazingly there really weren't. I got there, the doctor looked at my knee and put some ointment on it, then explained he would give me more of it and I should put it on my legs to prevent infection. Then there was the X-Rays. They X-Rayed both of my legs and found no fractures, so that was good. The cops came to pick me up, too, and the only hitch was that I owed like 30,000 yen for the hospital stay but of course I didn't have that on me, so... they said to please come back in a few days with a Japanese-speaking friend, so I will do that. They copied my gaijin card and took down a whole bunch of info, so. The doctor said he thought my leg would heal within two weeks, and that if there were problems I should come back and see him again. Originally he said I should come back on MONDAY but then said if I was able to walk then to not worry about it.
The cops took me back... to the police station, where I had to be questioned about the accident, by of course more people who didn't speak English. You know, if I had to think about it I would be proud of how well I did manage to get through this speaking Japanese all things considered, but really it was just like "FUCK, I JUST GOT HIT BY A TRUCK, MY BIKE IS BROKEN, MY LEG MIGHT BE BROKEN, I AM SUPPOSED TO BE GOING TO NAGOYA IN ONLY A FEW HOURS..."
I did ask several people if it would be ok to go to Nagoya. They were like "If your leg isn't broken and if you can walk in the morning, sure, you can go." So we'll see what happens when I wake up in oh god like 4 hours at this point. I guess at least I can sleep on the train and all. I also think I'll be direly depressed if I don't go and just sit at home all day with a hurt leg. But we'll see. (Last time I got hit by a car, I went to a roller skating birthday party about 2 hours later. I'm dumb that way.)
Oh yeah, and of course every time someone asked where I was from and I said Seattle, people asked if I liked Ichiro. There are some things that are pretty universal to Japan.
Afterwards the cops gave me a ride home AND took my bike home with me, even though the front wheel is bent beyond recognition. The nicer cop said about ninety times "Please get some rest and stop worrying, okay? Everything is okay, you'll be okay, I promise."
Anyway uh... yeah... so now I have seen a Japanese hospital and a police station, and an ambulance, only a few hours after being in a movie theater... life is weird sometimes.
And yes, I really should be glad I'm alive and mostly okay. I'm a moron like that sometimes I guess, not even thinking about how lucky I am that it wasn't worse. I guess now that the whole hospital ordeal is over, I'm more like "I am ALIVE!" This is actually my second time being hit by a car, so I have a feeling the next time is probably going to be pretty bad. Let's hope there isn't a next time...
EDIT> I dunno, I woke up, I can kind of walk, I think I'm going to try to go to Nagoya after all. We'll see how far I get trying to walk the mile to the station though. I'll answer comments later or on the train or something. I also have a small bruise on my chest that I am a little bit worried about, but we'll see if anything comes of it.
Today was actually pretty good up until that point, I think. I finally met one of my students who I thought would be awesome and they are awesome. All of my classes went well. I was a little sad because I waited around for a student of mine to get out of a homestay counselling session, and it took so long I ended up leaving, but whatever.
I went to the Tokyo Dome and got tickets to see a Giants-Dragons game in a few weeks, and I got some more baseball cards and a magazine at Yamashita, and I got kaiten sushi for dinner, and I went home. All normal so far...
...watched the Giants-Tigers game, saw the Tigers win, and decided to go see Rush Hour 3 over at Movix. Still normal...
I biked down to Ario, watched the movie. (It was GOOD. I still love Jackie Chan.) I was riding my bike home up Road 35 around 11pm, thinking about how I'd write an LJ entry about having a pretty good day. I started crossing this one wide street near Nishi-Kawaguchi station. The walk light was green in my direction. I was riding, and...
...this car carrier was turning left...
...right INTO ME...!?!
It hit me on its left side (my right side), I went flying off my bike, my front bike tire went under the truck. I was just lying there on the street for a minute in sheer disbelief about what had just happened. MY BIKE WAS DESTROYED was all I could think for a few seconds.
Then I noticed there was something wet on the ground.... and I also noticed that there was a big wet spot on my pants leg, around my left knee and around my right shin. It was, uh, you know, MY BLOOD. I got a nasty-ass cut on my left knee from hitting the ground. I also got a pretty big bruise/gash down my right leg.
A lady came up to me and was like "Daijobu? Daijobu desu ka?" and suddenly I'm like OH FUCK I'M IN JAPAN and I just start crying. "Daijobu ja nain darou... jitensha wa... ashi wa itai... WAAAAAAAAAH"
A guy comes up to me and apologizes about ninety times and then I realize what he's saying is thst he was the truck driver. He and the lady say they will call the police. They do. We are fortunately literally about 2 blocks from the Kawaguchi police station on road 35, so police show up pretty quickly. The first thing they ask (in Japanese) is "Can you understand Japanese?" and I go "I can but not very well," and they ask what happened; I say just something like "bike accident, leg hurts" and the man and woman explain the accident. The policeman asks if I want to go to a hospital and I'm thinking FUCK, A HOSPITAL, OH GOD but I say I don't know. They say they'll call an ambulance anyway to take a look at me, and they do. I'm still really concerned about my bike and EVERYONE is like "Stop worrying about your bike, your body and health are much more important!!" and I explained it was a new bike and I ride it all the time and... they were like "really, stop worrying!"
The ambulance guys look at my legs, the blood, and go "we really should take you to the hospital," and I'm like "do they have any people who speak English?" "Well... no..." "Oh, um..." The guy told me a story about how he had been in Australia and couldn't speak English and got in an accident, but everything worked out okay, so stop worrying. They took my blood pressure -- several times -- and they put a bandage on my knee and stuff, and eventually I tried calling Sam but didn't get through, but did get through to Eri. She was like "DEANNA? WHAT IS GOING ON? IT'S 11:30PM," and I said "Eri, I'm in an ambulance. I got hit by a truck." "WHAT?" "Yeah." Apparently she convinced them to take me to the hospital and then convinced me to go...
...EXCEPT it turned out that none of the nearby hospitals could deal with me at the moment. No joke. So the ambulance guys say they're going to take me to some far away hospital and I'm just like "wait WHAT?" and they asked if I had any friends I could call, and I explained Eri lives in Kichijouji, and so I called Sam again and this time I got through. But, fortunately before I had to ask Sam to pleeeeease come help me out, the ambulance guys apparently talked to the cops, and the cops said they could come fetch me from the hospital out in the middle of nowhere. Whew. Sam talked to them a bit and explained they would go take X-Rays and would try to talk to me in Japanese REALLY simply and slowly, and to call him if there were any problems.
Amazingly there really weren't. I got there, the doctor looked at my knee and put some ointment on it, then explained he would give me more of it and I should put it on my legs to prevent infection. Then there was the X-Rays. They X-Rayed both of my legs and found no fractures, so that was good. The cops came to pick me up, too, and the only hitch was that I owed like 30,000 yen for the hospital stay but of course I didn't have that on me, so... they said to please come back in a few days with a Japanese-speaking friend, so I will do that. They copied my gaijin card and took down a whole bunch of info, so. The doctor said he thought my leg would heal within two weeks, and that if there were problems I should come back and see him again. Originally he said I should come back on MONDAY but then said if I was able to walk then to not worry about it.
The cops took me back... to the police station, where I had to be questioned about the accident, by of course more people who didn't speak English. You know, if I had to think about it I would be proud of how well I did manage to get through this speaking Japanese all things considered, but really it was just like "FUCK, I JUST GOT HIT BY A TRUCK, MY BIKE IS BROKEN, MY LEG MIGHT BE BROKEN, I AM SUPPOSED TO BE GOING TO NAGOYA IN ONLY A FEW HOURS..."
I did ask several people if it would be ok to go to Nagoya. They were like "If your leg isn't broken and if you can walk in the morning, sure, you can go." So we'll see what happens when I wake up in oh god like 4 hours at this point. I guess at least I can sleep on the train and all. I also think I'll be direly depressed if I don't go and just sit at home all day with a hurt leg. But we'll see. (Last time I got hit by a car, I went to a roller skating birthday party about 2 hours later. I'm dumb that way.)
Oh yeah, and of course every time someone asked where I was from and I said Seattle, people asked if I liked Ichiro. There are some things that are pretty universal to Japan.
Afterwards the cops gave me a ride home AND took my bike home with me, even though the front wheel is bent beyond recognition. The nicer cop said about ninety times "Please get some rest and stop worrying, okay? Everything is okay, you'll be okay, I promise."
Anyway uh... yeah... so now I have seen a Japanese hospital and a police station, and an ambulance, only a few hours after being in a movie theater... life is weird sometimes.
And yes, I really should be glad I'm alive and mostly okay. I'm a moron like that sometimes I guess, not even thinking about how lucky I am that it wasn't worse. I guess now that the whole hospital ordeal is over, I'm more like "I am ALIVE!" This is actually my second time being hit by a car, so I have a feeling the next time is probably going to be pretty bad. Let's hope there isn't a next time...
EDIT> I dunno, I woke up, I can kind of walk, I think I'm going to try to go to Nagoya after all. We'll see how far I get trying to walk the mile to the station though. I'll answer comments later or on the train or something. I also have a small bruise on my chest that I am a little bit worried about, but we'll see if anything comes of it.
no subject
I'm relieved it wasn't any worse.