Megan is OK; the scooter is not

Megan asked me to write this because she is too busy marking papers at this moment getting ready for the end of the school year reports.

Here's what happened: On Tuesday morning on the way to work, Megan turned right toward school. It was typical morning rush hour traffic, and it's always a challenge making a right hand turn onto that street. Megan says she checked right and then checked left before crossing, but she forgot to check right again because when she got half way across the street she was hit in what the policeman called "a full side impact." Megan doesn't remember all the details but the next thing she knew she was lying in the middle of the road, turned around facing the direction she came from, her motor scooter was further down the road, and her shoes were on the other side of the scooter.

The whole neighbourhood mobilised to help. One of Megan's students lives right across the street from the accident and came to help. The driver of the car that hit her called 111 for an ambulance. A tow truck arrived almost immediately to pick up the pieces of the scooter. Our neighbour, Margaret, also a teacher at Dio, stopped to help and to take the news to school. Some street repair construction workers placed orange traffic cones around Megan and re-directed traffic a safe distance away. A gardener from the cemetery brought a blanket for Megan. The medics came in an ambulance to check her over but by then she was already sitting on the kerb and the scooter had been pulled to the side of the road on the verge. The police came and interviewed everybody. Then our neighbour Brendon stopped to help with the tow truck which took the scooter to an insurance assessment yard. Then Brendon brought Megan home where she called me at work. She was a little bruised and sore but mostly shook up from the trauma. I hopped on my bicycle and came home to be the primary care giver.

Megan spent the rest of the day recovering, napping, and checking for new bruises and abrasions. Thursday she went to the doctor to have her wrist xrayed because it was sore and blue. The wrist is OK - just sprained a little - but the doctor thinks she may have cracked a rib because she feels pain when she coughs. He said it would be a waste to xray for the rib because they can't treat it anyway. He said if the rib had fractured and punctured her lung, then they could treat it but I guess that didn't happen.

The worst part is that Megan can't sit still for more than an hour so she went to work Wednesday so she wouldn't get so bored. Then she felt tired because her body really needs time to heal, so she decided to work only half a day Thursday. Even that was too much. Friday she has a morning meeting but she won't teach for the rest of the day. I feel like I need to tackle her and pin her down to stop her, but she won't stay still. When she is sitting quietly she continues to mark papers. Grrrr.
Megan says that I shouldn't make it sound worse than it is or people might get alarmed. I think I captured the escence of it pretty much. She is a very lucky girl. That's two close calls in the last two months. Remember the taxi and muffin incident at Trafalger Square? I told her that there is to be no more impacts with cars. This trend must stop.

Curt