My vision went totally black but I was still talking — anyone else experience this after a crash?
So I was in a pretty serious rear-end collision about three weeks ago. Ended up with a broken collarbone and some cracked ribs. The whole situation was terrifying but what's been stuck in my head isn't even the pain — it's this weird thing that happened while I was waiting for the ambulance.
A bystander was trying to keep me calm and at some point I glanced down at my shoulder area and everything just... went black. Like someone hit a switch on my vision. But here's the thing — I was still completely there. I could hear everything around me, I was answering questions, I even remember making a dumb joke to the paramedic. I just couldn't see anything for what felt like maybe 30–45 seconds.
It wasn't like fainting — I've actually fainted before (got woozy at a blood draw once and went full lights-out). This was completely different. No tunnel vision leading up to it, no feeling of going down, no grogginess after. Just a hard cut to black and then back again.
I looked it up and everything I found was about vasovagal syncope or regular fainting and none of it matched what I went through. I asked my ER doctor and she gave me kind of a vague answer about stress responses.
Has anyone else experienced something like this after an accident? I'm genuinely curious what was going on in my brain. Not panicking about it, just fascinated honestly — the body does some wild stuff under extreme stress.