It was the day after we arrived in Florida for that "special" vacation. We decided to just spend the day doing some shopping at the local stores near the resort. It was roughly 17:58 and we had just left the last store, a small shop resembling "Party City". When exiting the parking lot, my father, whom was driving took a left turn onto the back road leading to another street, however, he realized that by going through the other exit, it would get you to the main highway quicker. So after he turns around and drives to the other exit, we are waiting for a space to clear in order to enter the highway.
While we were waiting, my father spots a grayish/gold SUV veering off the road, thinking the driver of said vehicle had just been looking at their phone, he slightly dismissed it but was watching to make sure they corrected the direction they were driving. After noticing that the driver was still hurtling towards us, he realizes that it isn't going to be stopping, nor correcting anything. As there were already cars pulled up behind us waiting to turn, my father, in effort to minimize the damage done to my mother and I, he slammed on the gas and then the breaks to move our small Nissan car enough that the SUV would only hit the boot of the car and hopefully not seriously injure any of us. When the SUV collided with our car, we were picked up and spun around in a 270° circle before the car landed back on the ground. The people that had been waiting behind us rushed out of their vehicle to try and help us but the locking mechanism on the doors had engaged. I had realized this and leaned over trying to unlock them, after three minutes I finally got them to unlock.
As soon as they were unlocked everything went into chaos. My father, with a rush of adrenaline, jumped out and started checking on my mum and I to make sure we were okay, as he is an EMT (emergency medical technician.) My mother had brain trauma and whiplash. I was covered in glass and had whiplash. The hat, that had originally been on my head, was 150 yards down the highway from the scene of the accident.
The driver of the SUV had run off the road onto the grassy section just past the sidewalk. Her front axle was warped and out of alignment so she could not go anywhere. After figuring this out, she stumbled out of her vehicle and attempted to get away. At this point it is blatantly obvious that she is severely intoxicated. One of the people that was helping us noticed her trying to escape and grabbed her before she could.
It took Emergency services a total of 6 minutes and 30 seconds to reach us. My father, slightly baffled by this, as a normal response time for a medical unit is 10 to 15 minutes. Wondering how they got to us so quickly, my father asked a nearby police officer and was informed that the woman whom had hit us had caused three other accidents within a four mile radius.
Once the EMT'S and Peramedics got my mother and I into the ambulance, we were rushed to the hospital. It took almost an hour to remove all the glass from my arms, neck, face, and hair. My mother and I both had a mild concussion due to the whiplash.
As we were moved around the hospital to get MRI's and X-rays, the nurses were also moving the woman who hit us, so she ended up "following us around the hospital. My father confronted them about it, and their response was "Yeah but everyone deserves the same treatment so you're just going to have to deal with it."
Seeing as the woman was intoxicated, she was just laying on the gerny twirling her feet and humming to herself without a care in the world. It was later revealed that she was not only drunk on half a bottle of Whiskey, but had also taken two sleeping pills.
It wasn't until a week after we returned home that we learned of my father's condition. His lower back is broken in three places and his neck in two places, as well as his teeth shattered. Not having the money for all of the required surgeries, he only had a surgery performed on his lower back. To this day, he still has not had the rest of the needed surgeries.
We sued the woman that hit us, but since her family has money, she had a better lawyer and only had to give a portion of what had been requested. And while we did have a lawyer, he screwed us over and committed insurance fraud with our doctor "friend" that had recommended him to us. Between all of the added expenses, we lost almost half a million dollars with no way to get it back. My father is 100% disabled and can no longer work, so my mother is currently the only one working. The government won't give my father disability benefits despite all the evidence proving his disability. He has not had the proper medication in over four years and is constantly in pain.
Over the course of the last five years, we have been screwed over by 15 doctors, 2 lawyers, 4 "friends", and the people that had previously owned the land we had been living on, whom sold it out from under us, breaking the contract we had with them. The new owners said "get your belongings and leave the appliances" however we owned the house so they couldn't actually take that from us. They said "go have a new start" knowing that we didn't have the money to buy a new house as they were in cahoots with the former owner and knew everything we had been going through. However they did not care and just wanted money. Everything is about who has the most money because "money is power". But money is not power, it is a weakness. The more you have, the more you could lose.
