A Little Excitement at the Tucker's

Wow. So we had a long night last night at the Tucker household this friday night! I met up with Karen and my daughters and our realator at a home in south county that we wanted to look at. On the way to the second home, my oldest daughter (who was riding in the car with me, following my wife and my youngest daughter) and I witnessed and experienced something that I wouldn’t wish on anyone ever. As my wife attempted to make a left onto Lindbergh, she was “T-Boned” by an S-10 pickup traveling around 30mph – 40mph. It was a car she didn’t see (as the lane nearest her was stopped and another car was waiving her through) and the driver of the other car didn’t have time to react. It was the closest to helplessness that I have ever felt, as I ran towards the car with my youngest screaming and my wife in complete shock. Remarkably neither was bleeding very badly but because of the impact I was affraid to move them until the paramedics arrived and just tried to keep them both calm and still (not an easy task when your 5 year old is screaming for her daddy to help her). The paramedics and police arrived on site and took over and eventually I was given Hannah to hold while the paramedics finished checking her out, as the firemen were using the portapowers to create room to get Karen out of the vehicle. I have seen accidents before, and been in an accident or two; but to actually witness this one and essentially be helpless was very frightening.After a long night in the hospital though, everything ended well and both my girls were released with minimal damage. Karen sustained multiple rib fractures and a displaced rib along with neck strain. Hannah suffered a left bruised face, but after keeping her head elevated over the night and most of the morning the coloring has come back and it doesn’t look as bad as it did last night. They wil both be back to normal in a few days or weeks, and the driver of the truck wasn’t injured, so all were very fortunate. If you got caught in the traffic jam, my apologies………My dad and I went to gather the personal belongings out of the car today, and we were both reminded how lucky they were. The point of impact occured in the vertical frame member between the front and rear passenger door. If the point had moved either way by a foot or more they may not have been so lucky; there definitely was a higher power looking after my family on that moment.

Please let this be a reminder to everyone to wear thier seat belts and make sure that if you have a child under the age of 8 in your car that they should be in an appropriate child seat.

–Matt Tucker