A Series of Unfortunate Events: Part 2

Warning:  some of what I am going to say is graphic.

So, like I said in my last post.  A car hit my house.

Darrell and I went to bed at about 12:30.  It had been a great weekend.  We had the family get together for Ryan and Eric's birthdays the day before, and the house was really clean, which you would know that would be a bid deal if you know me.  Anyway, we went to bed.  At about 2:40 am we both woke up, looked at each other and said in unison, "What was that?"  Darrell ran downstairs to look out of the window to try to see what is up, to find that he couldn't look out of the window, because a car had crashed into the house right below it.  He ran back upstairs, got dressed and told me to grab the phone and come downstairs.  I remember asking what happened, and he just would say that I would see.

I headed downstairs and immediately called 911.  We could hear the car's OnStar system trying to talk to the driver, and there were already neighbors at our house trying to see if they could help the driver.  Fortunately/unfortunately, the car was too deep into my house and we couldn't see anything.  Very grateful for that actually, because the driver died instantly because the sub-flooring in our living room hit him in the throat.  He was not decapitated. However, everything was crushed.

Anyway, the 911 operator had me repeat a few times what I was telling her.  All I could say was, "There is a car in my house!" She asked me several times in the next few minutes what I saw and if everyone in the house was OK - which we were. The emergency vehicles got to my house really quickly. My backdoor neighbor came running up during this and just started hugging  me telling me that everything was alright.  Apparently the shock wave from the crash actually shook her house and woke her up as well.

Amazingly, Ryan and Jenny were they only ones that got woken up by the crash.  Ryan says that the squealing tires are what woke him up, so he was awake for the crash.  He thought a missile had hit the house.

When the firefighters came in they had a gas meter.  It went to the highest click, so we had to grab what we could as fast as we could and get out.  I went and got Meagan and Darrell got everyone else.  I didn't even get her car seat or the diaper bag.  I ended up asking an officer to go get my car seat for me.  Darrell took so long that they almost went in to get him.

Because we couldn't be at the house, I woke up my wonderful friend Donna Gabriel to ask her if we could come over because she lives just down the street from us.  We took the kids over, and I went to Walmart to get everything we would need for the day.  The kids wanted to still go to school, so I had to get clothes for everyone, and all the normal diaper bag stuff, because I didn't know when they would let us back into the house.  It ended up that they let us in within 2 hours, but only for 20 minutes.  Let me tell you, you really do figure out what is important to you when you are told you only have 20 minutes. 

The rest of the day was spent trying to deal with what we needed to do next.

We were top news in the area for two days because of this. The best headline we heard that day was, "Camaro hits a house full of children!" I don't know why, but that one made us laugh so hard!  I was able to find some news video from that day.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find the one with my interview in it, but oh well.  And it is crazy how the media camps out and waits for you until you give.  I was also surprised at some of the info they tried to get out of me.  Like names and ages of my kids.  Why would they need that?  Anyway, to see the news story you can go here.

Here are some of the pictures we took that day as well:

Front view of the house

What the living room looked like after they took the car out of the house.

Where the driver hit the curb leading up to my house.  We were told that he hit our house going 70-90 miles an hour.

Behind our dryer downstairs.

The half wall in the den down stairs.

The bay window in the back of the house.

 The air vents for under the house in the back of the house that had been blown out. This is what got us our new decking, because they had to pull up the deck in order to get to the siding to be able to repair it.

 The front corner of the house.  We ended up getting all of the brick on our house replaced. 

 The living room after they cleaned everything out.  We called this "The Pit".

 You can see here where the stairs separated a little bit from the wall as well.

These pictures are not all of the damage that happened to our house, but it gives you a great idea of how extensive it was.  It was really bad, but it could have been a lot worse.  We learned a lot about how our house was built right(the sub-flooring was done really well for this) and how it had some things not so right (the vents you saw blown out).

I am so very grateful that no one in my family was hurt.  There was a huge potential for that to happen, but it didn't.  I am saddened that this young man lost his life.

That being said, there are lessons and blessings from this that will affect us for the rest of our lives.  Even though it is hard, I am glad to know that I have been able to get through this ordeal without going completely crazy. :)  I am also so very grateful to be back in my own house.  But that is a story for another day. :)

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Part 1

 *Note: Some of the things that have happened to us are somewhat shocking and very crazy. I have been told that I need to sort of prepare people when I tell them of these events, so this is your warning.

So. We have had quite the eventful year. I guess I will start with the good stuff and go from there.

 First off, on January 14, Meagan Claire Autry was born. As always I was induced. We did pretty good other than Meagan had the cord so tight around her neck that I had to stop pushing so that my awesome OB could cut the cord off of her neck. She did really well, but then got a fever, so she got to stay in the Level 2 nursery and was released a day after I was. She is such a precious little one and is truly a miracle child.

 Right after she was born.

She had a little bit of Jaundice, so they decided to put her under the bili lights so she wouldn't have to come back.

Getting reading to go home for the first time.

When Meagan was one month old we had an accident. When getting back into the car after Western Day at the elementary school, I tripped and fell with Meagan in my Arms. I am sure that about 50 parents had a heart attack when they saw us hit, and at least 5 parents were there in like 3 seconds. The school called 911, and we took an ambulance ride to Texas Childrens Hospital, West Campus.

Here she is after our first ambulance ride.  They taped her head down, which was so sad.  The tape made it so that she couldn't open her left eye, which kind of made us worried until they cut the tape off.

While at Texas Childrens, West Campus, we got a CT scan to see if there was any damage to her head, since she looked like she fell straight on her head. And there was. She had two fractures to her skull and a little bit of bleeding in between her brain and her skull. Because of this we took our second ambulance ride downtown to Texas Childrens Hospital, Main Campus. We stayed there all night for observation. Meagan stayed in the Neonatal Nursery, and I went to the Ronald McDonald house for some sleep. That morning they said that she was doing well, and we were released.

I just want to share a little of the beauty I found while going through this particular trial.  This fountain is located at the Ronald McDonald House - which is actually located just down the hall from the NICU.  It was so great to have a bed to sleep in so close to my little one, and to have a quiet place to sit when I went to get breakfast from their snack area.  I love how at Texas Childrens they have these little places of comfort and beauty for the patients and their parents.  It helps to brighten an otherwise cloudy day.

 We went to have our follow-up a month later, and they were very impressed with her. It appears that she doesn't have any residual damage from the accident. The first five minutes of the visit Meagan had here own conversation with the Nurse Practitioner. The nurse told me that we were really lucky, and that it was a very unusual break. She would have been very interested to see how we fell(so would I, because I think I closed my eyes). She said that Meagan must have bounced or something to have had the two fractures the way she did. One thing I have learned through this is how very lucky we were that we had the witnesses, because of the unusualness of the breaks. The Neurosurgeons automatically call CPS when an infant had a fractured skull. I guess they did in my case as well, and the CPS people stopped to talk to me at the hospital, but I had already left. I am very grateful that I didn't have to talk to them.

 For all of what this little girl has gone through in her short little life, I truly believe that she is a miracle. Things could have gone a lot worse, but they didn't, and for that I am truly, truly grateful.

In my next post, I will tell you more about how a car crashed into our house in April, and the fall out of all of that.