One year ago, I learned three things: exercising is dangerous, bad experiences make for good stories, and getting hit by a car is not a good enough excuse for missing out on good food.
I love wandering around Japan on foot. Though the main streets have wider sidewalks, I appreciate the view the narrow, alley-like side streets offer and I often route my runs through them. Unfortunately, these side streets don’t have any traffic stops or signals of any kind, just a “yield if you see something and/or proceed with caution” sort of deal. Cars often make rolling turns at higher speeds than I’m used to. But these were never good enough reasons for me to avoid these roads.
Exercising is dangerous
On the morning of March 17, 2014, I set out for a run through my neighborhood. I was jogging and then stopped at one of the narrow street’s signal-less intersections. I remember looking around and not seeing any cars before I crossed but then out of nowhere as I was crossing, I started tumbling, and then I was on the ground.
You know how people say life flashes before your eyes? False. Not the case, at least for me. But it was like a crash scene in the movies—you know, how they splice together rough cuts as the person or car tumbles. First I saw the sky, then a tree, then my hand, then a car, then the ground. Although I wasn’t sure what exactly was happening, there was a millisecond where I thought I was dying. Needless to say, that extremely brief feeling, is nothing like I’ve ever experienced before. I can’t really explain it. It was so quick, yet it felt like everything had been slowed to half-speed.
The amount of information a brain can process in a matter of seconds is incredibly remarkable. After I stopped moving, I remember trying to figure out if I was alive. Again, strangest feeling in the world. The next 10 seconds turned into a survival mode checklist:
Jesus, what just happened? I remember hearing a car screech and a loud bang. Was that the sound of me flying off the car? I think I just got hit by a car. I just got hit by a car. A car. OK. SHIT.
Can I move?
I looked around. Eyes, check. Oh, my contacts are still in!
I moved my head. Head and neck, check. Good, not a vegetable.
Alright, arms and legs, please work. I waved my arms and legs slightly while still face down like a reversed snow angel. YES! So far, so good.
God, my face feels like it’s falling off. I wonder if this look will hold up until Halloween. Now, where am I? Oh right, I’m still in the intersection.
The car that hit me began to drive around me.
OH HELL NO, DON’T YOU DARE DRIVE AWAY. I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN WITH MY MELTING FACE AND HAUNT YOU FOREVER.
Traffic started up again, and other cars started driving around me.
Seriously? Why isn’t anyone helping me? FANTASTIC. K, get yourself off the street before you get run over again.
Ugh, I don’t want to get up. So much pain. I like lying on the street. It’s nice and warm.
NO. Get it together and crawl if you have to. GET OFF THE STREET.
I stumbled off to the side of the road where I found that the driver of the car that hit me had pulled over. Frantic, she spoke so quickly that even if I had known more Japanese, I still wouldn’t have been able to catch what she was saying. I was in shock but attempted to pull together a coherent sentence with whatever was left of my depleted brain power.
Bad experiences make for good stories
Just like much of my experience with people here, the rest of my day turned into an unintentional, hilariously confusing mess lost in translation. I couldn’t help but start laughing as the lady tried to understand what I was attempting to tell her. I was just so relieved to be alive at that point. I think she thought that my repeating the same two sentences—“I’m American” and “I don’t speak Japanese”—was just a result of the accident, like my brain had been damaged or something. Why else would an Asian girl say she couldn’t speak Japanese… in Japanese?
Miraculously, my phone was still functioning despite the smashed screen. I called my manager to tell her what happened and asked her to explain my situation to the driver. My manager told me that an ambulance was on its way, and that she would meet me at the hospital.
I’m not going to lie, as someone who’s never ridden in an ambulance before, I was kind of excited for the ride, but probably only because I was alive and not seriously injured. Again, the EMTs asked me questions I couldn’t understand or answer, and they didn’t understand why I couldn’t understand despite me saying in Japanese that I was American and didn’t speak Japanese. So what did they do? They started shouting the questions to me– because we all know that saying something louder is an effective way to bridge the language gap.
Next they had me get on the stretcher, which did not look safe by any means; just a plastic cutting board, to be honest. They loaded me up onto the ambulance, hooked me up to some monitors, put me in a neck brace, and transferred me to the hospital.
I felt like a strange science experiment, strapped down to a table under blinding fluorescent lights while a bunch of people in masks and scrubs stared down at me saying things I couldn’t understand.
After getting x-rayed and checked for a concussion, I was brought to another room to wait for the results and to give a police officer my statement. My manager was finally able to see me at that point and I couldn’t have been more grateful or embarrassed. Grateful because I couldn’t communicate with anyone and she was able to help me out, and embarrassed because here I was, a 23-year-old adult, yet I couldn’t take care of my own emergency myself.
I’d like to think that I was generally tolerant of everyone I had to deal with that day– or rather, those who had to deal with me– but one question the officer asked really got to me. He asked if I saw anything that I should have noticed prior to crossing the street, and after I answered no, he asked if I was sure.
“No, officer, I saw the car but I just thought it was a good day to get hit by a moving vehicle because I had nothing else really going on today.”
My x-ray results came out and I hadn’t broken any bones. I had to see a final doctor before I could go home, so I was released into the general waiting room where the driver of the car and her boss were waiting for me. The boss apologized profusely. Turns out they work for an insurance company, oddly enough. My manager had to return to work, but the driver and her boss stayed with me to help me with the paperwork. Using Google Translate, the driver translated the information the doctors gave me about what to watch out for the next 24 hours. Thank you, technology!
As we wrapped up the paperwork, I realized I had absolutely no money on me. I also had no idea where the hospital was in relation to my home. So the driver’s boss ended up driving me home with the driver following us behind, because there was no way I was getting in her car. Although better in her car than under, am I right? ;)
Getting hit by a car is not a good enough excuse for missing out on good food
By the time I got home it was already mid-afternoon. Frustrated that I’d pretty much lost an entire day off, I took a shower, cleaned up my busted face, and hobbled on to a train to meet my friends for dinner despite being told to rest. I might’ve spent half the day in a hospital but I’ll be dammed if it disrupts my dinner plans.
As a friend and I waited for another friend to arrive, an American stopped and asked us for directions. I took out my phone to look up the directions and upon seeing the smashed screen, he joked, “Nice screen.”
Exhausted, hungry, and having had enough condescension for the day, I snarked, “Yeah, I just got hit by a car today.”
He looked at me and I pointed to my scratched up face.
My friend chimed in, “Yeah, she just got out of the hospital a couple hours ago.”
For once—silence.
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