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The Shoulder
sharp-wolf-514

Our SUV flipped after hitting debris on the highway — everyone survived but we're all pretty wrecked

Still processing everything so bear with me if this is scattered.

Yesterday my sister and her boyfriend were riding with me on the interstate when a chunk of something — looked like a blown truck tire — appeared out of nowhere in our lane. I swerved to miss it and completely lost control. We went sideways off the road, hit a culvert, and the whole vehicle rolled at least twice before landing upright in a drainage ditch. Glass everywhere. Airbags everywhere. Silence for what felt like a full minute before anyone said anything.

My sister's boyfriend walked away with road rash on his forearm and a bruised shoulder. My sister has two cracked ribs and a deep cut above her eyebrow that took several stitches to close. I got the worst of it structurally — fractured wrist, bruised sternum from the seatbelt that makes it genuinely hard to breathe deeply, a pretty nasty concussion, and what they're calling a "cervical strain" which is fancy for my neck is absolutely destroyed right now.

Spent close to eight hours in the ER getting scanned and poked. At one point I was crying and laughing simultaneously because the ceiling tiles were doing something weird — probably the concussion.

Now I'm home with a wrist splint, a cervical collar, a stack of discharge papers, and absolutely zero idea what comes next. Do I file through my own insurance? The debris came off what looked like a commercial truck that just kept going — we never got plates. Does a hit-and-run even apply when the vehicle itself didn't hit you?

I'm grateful we're all alive. I really am. But I'm also scared and sore and honestly a little lost. If anyone's been through something similar I'd love to hear how you navigated the aftermath. 💙

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