BrokenFingernail.com

They are no fun whatsoever. They haven’t found the semi-truck that hit J.’s car yesterday morning, and they probably won’t. Even if the guy (or girl) wasn’t half asleep or on something, they probably didn’t even notice that they hit someone on the side of the road.

Since the state trooper that was at the scene didn’t have a camera, I took pictures before we brought the car back home. I figured this would be best, in the case that they do find whomever did this in the future.

So, here’s the whole story.. Yesterday was a long, strange day.

It all started around 4:30AM CST with a tire blowing out on US Highway 41 South. It was an evil, evil tire that started this chain of events.

It was the best treaded tire out of the four on the car/truck, so we still aren’t for sure what happened. Bad tire!

Well, J. gave me a call to tell me he had a blowout. That in itself wasn’t great, because that would mean what little bit of extra money we had for the week was going to a new tire instead of, well, food and gas. Not much we could do about the situation, so we were pretty okay with it. Stuff happens, you know?

J. decided to take off his hubcaps because they are rather rare and he was on the side of a highway. He got off the phone with me for a moment and took care of that, then proceeded to sit on the tailgate for a bit. Fortunately, it was still a bit chilly and he went inside of the car.

After talking to him for a couple of minutes and getting used to the sound of the semi’s whizing by, I heard a different noise on the other end of the phone. It sounded like metal on metal. J. started yelling that someone had hit him and was continuing to drive off. I asked if he could make out the license plate, but he could not as it wasn’t even morning yet.

I told him to call 911 after I was sure he was fine. I got off the phone and did the same thing, knowing that his cell phone doesn’t always like to work. The woman on the other end was very nice.. She attempted to transfer my call to the next county, in which the accident had happened. Unfortunately, our 911 service sucks so bad that it literally took us to the operator which said in a prerecorded message that they couldn’t make long distance calls through their line. (WTF?! It’s 911!)

When I got off the phone with emergency services, J. called me back and told me what had hit him–a regular box semi truck with a commerical load. It was an orange/brown and continued southbound into the next county, where it proply disappeared.

The problem with this whole event was several things. Mainly, it wasn’t windy. It wasn’t raining. It wasn’t foggy. J. had pulled off completely onto the shoulder and had his lights and flashers on. The only thing that made the situation bad–besides that he was pulled off on the side of a main highway in the night–was the fact that it was on a bit of a turn.. But you can see around that bend for several hundred yards and could plainly see a car pulled off to the side.

Here you can see how far into the shoulder that the car was. It wasn’t off into the grass, but you aren’t supposed to be. J. pulled the vehicle plenty far enough over, as he wasn’t close to the noise lines that one hits if they drive off onto the shoulder.

Now, next is the corner itself. I took the pictures facing north in the southbound lane, showing where the cars come around the bend and can begin to see what is on the corner.

Facing towards the south in the southbound lane, you can see a semi in this photo. They travel back and forth on this roadway a lot, as it is the quickest way to Indiananpolis, Chicago, and Detroit if you have to go through this area.

So, since I’ve explained where it happened and why no one should have hit the car. I’ll show you the damage that, believe me, doesn’t look half as bad as it really is.

Here’s a shot from the back.

Here’s a shot from the side. The gas tank is on the side it was struck. Wonderful, no?

Now, I know this really doesn’t look that bad, compared that it was hit by a loaded semi going at least 70MPH. But, this is not where the story ends..

J. came home after everything and we took a nap, as we had to wait for his check to come in before we could bother to go out and get a new tire. It was completely drivable and J. was just going to borrow his father’s truck, and then we where going to get a tire and replace this one and bring the car home to work on it at some point after getting some estimates on the damage. (You know, just in case they catch the guy..)

All that went well. I decided to drive it home, seeing as I hate his father’s truck because it is massive and I can’t see any other vehicles around me. So, I’m calmly driving over one of two bridges we have to cross to get home. Nothing is wrong besides the El Camino is shaky and the sunroof is leaking in one corner. I figured the crash just jarred the seal and didn’t think anything of it, as it wasn’t really raining too bad.

So, here I am driving over the bridge. Obviously, I’m going slower than the speed limit, just in case something is seriously wrong that we don’t know about and I have to stop or pull over quickly. Just the common stuff. J. is behind me in the truck, about two to three car lengths back with his flashers on. Of course, the back lights on the car were broken so I couldn’t use the caution lights.

Suddenly, the black glass of the sunroof is gone and all I see out of the corner of my eye is the cloudy sky above. All I could do was slow down to 25MPH, because the bridge has no area to pull off on. I couldn’t even see where the sunroof had gone, as it had gotten so much lift and flew pretty high.

The next thing I know, I see the truck slam on it’s breaks and the black tinned glass of the sunroof shatter and explode right in front of the grill. It barely missed his father’s new truck by a half a foot.!

Needless to say, I drove the rest of the way home even slower! Though I had to pull over a couple of times because I kept hearing strange metal-on-metal noises, the car is safely back in the driveway with a new tarp fastened over the top so the rain doesn’t soak and ruin the inside.

Obviously, the crash was a lot worse than what everyone thought and it has bent the entire frame and body of the car. Every part is knocked to the passanger side in the front, as the impact was on the rear driver’s side. The passanger side door is jarred forward and the window now leaks, but that isn’t as bad as the sunroof!

Now, I bought J. this car over a year ago. He just started driving it again because my car is dead-dead. (My starter broke and a piece flew up into my transmission and cracked it.) He loves his car and now has a good reason to work on it.

Oh, I forgot to mention: The hood is stuck too. When J. attempted to open it by pulling the cable, the cable snapped under the hood due to the pressure. It now has to be opened from underneath the vehicle, which is going to be so much fun of course.

Here’s a big problem that we have now though: We don’t have a car that we can drive. J. is currently borrowing his mothers’ car, but that can’t be used forever. To fix my car, I have to come up with at least $600.oo up front because the part has to be bought outright and my mechanic doesn’t have the money to let me make payments on it.

We have bills to pay. We are/were planning on moving out in a couple of weeks. Now, we’re stuck and there isn’t much we can do. Seeing as we didn’t have the money to get full coverage on the El Camino, the insurance doesn’t cover hit-and-run accidents. So, yeah, the car was just totaled and we aren’t going to get anything in return for our troubles.

If you managed to read this entire, long chain of events–I thank you. It was a troubling time yesterday and I have only recently calmed myself down because, well, it was a lot to take in at one time.

So, to even bother asking this seems pointless, but I have to anyway.. Would anyone be willing to donate a couple of dollars? We are in quite a bind, but I know others are too. If you can spare a dime or two, I’d be more than grateful.