Shane's accident

[Sinlingual]

I was watching shane's older videos and i didn't know that he got in a car accident and had to have surgury on his arm and his wife died.

I was just wondering if you can tell us the whole story behind it cause you don't really embellish much in your vids. All I know is that it as a drunk driver, and what i said previous.

[MrBogosity]

It was 1 December 2006. My wife and I were driving up to Michigan with the kids to spend an early Christmas with her family. We figured, go do that before the snow got too bad.

It was a clear night. The original idea was to get a motel room in Charleston (West Virginia) and finish the drive up the next day, but we heard on the radio that they were calling for snow the next day, so we figured the more mountains we put behind us the better. We decided to go ahead and drive into Ohio and get a motel room in Marietta.

I have no idea how fast the drunk was going; all I know is he didn't have his headlights on. All I could do was swerve at the last moment. That's most likely what saved me and the kids, but it also means that Joey got the full force of the impact. Believe me, that was NOT the idea!

When I came to, I was in the twisted wreckage of our Crown Victoria with my limbs going in directions they weren't made to go and no memory of even leaving home. The wife and kids were all gone, I had no idea where I was or what happened. A rescue worker was there (he's the one who brought me around), and talking with him helped me reconstruct what I remember. I remember nothing about the impact, nor anything else about the wreck except one image I have of my headlights reflecting off the other car just before it hit.

What was worse than the pain and the cold was not knowing what happened to them. As they were working on me and getting me on the ambulance and taken to the hospital, they kept trying to contact my family and figure out what happened to my wife and kids. On the way to the hospital I got updates on both kids. They were both alive and taken to the hospital. My son had head injuries, and they were worried that he had brain damage until I told them he's autistic. My daughter had severe injuries (coincidentally almost exactly like mine) and was in intensive care. No word on Joey.

That's when I thought, "She's dead. She didn't make it." I didn't think they were holding back telling me; I just figured if they got updates on the kids in the hospital they would have known about her, too. Which meant she was most likely in the morgue. By the time I got the news for real I was already prepared for it. My one consolation is that the coroner said her death was so quick she probably didn't even realize that anything happened.

After that, there's not much to tell, except hospital stuff. We were there for 10 days (my daughter and I in ICU for the first two), then it was home for recovery. I ended up having to have five surgeries all total.

Now, I'm going to the gym as much as I can to get my limbs back as good as I can. They're not 100% yet, and I'm beginning to doubt they ever will be.

I know my heart won't.

[Tom S. Fox]

That's so sad.

What happened to the drunk driver?

[MrBogosity]

He died six hours after the accident.

[Sinlingual]

fuckin hell. Thanx for telling us all. I know it can be hard to talk about bad memories like that. I don't know why people can get so drunk that they do stupid shit like not turning the lights on and all. That must've been really hard losing your wife. I couldn't even imagine. Well I'm glad things weren't worse than they were, maybe if you didn't swerve all of you would be dead. Have you been dating since?

[MrBogosity]

Not exactly. I've started slowly putting myself back out there, but no real dates as of yet.

[Atheos5150]

How horrible...I could not imagine going through that and had no idea that it even happened.

I know if my husband or my daughter ever died, it would be the hardest thing to get through. 

[IceSage]

I'm glad you're so open to telling the story, Shane... as I can imagine it being a soft spot for you.

Even though the other driver died, I hope you got full compensation for everything, in some sort of way. Nobody should have to go through that.

I'm not against drinking, but being irresponsible about drinking is the worst possible thing, and this is the result.

[MrBogosity]

No, unfortunately he was uninsured, and his family was extremely poor.

So now, I'm faced with a horrible credit rating and tons of medical bills because our legal system isn't sophisticated enough to realize that I'm no more responsible for what happened than any other random person you could pick.

[BZ987654]

That is awful all the way around. Damn, I'm sorry to hear about this.

[bp_28]

No, unfortunately he was uninsured, and his family was extremely poor.

So now, I'm faced with a horrible credit rating and tons of medical bills because our legal system isn't sophisticated enough to realize that I'm no more responsible for what happened than any other random person you could pick.

Unfortunately, by making insurance mandatory for drivers, you actually it more expensive to cover costs than you need to by artificially raising supply, therefore raising quantity, and by extension prices. I guess this is an example of how mandating insurance actually backfired. This isn't rocket science, and it's sad that two lives were lost in order to prove this fact.   

[MrBogosity]

Since this thread got resurrected, I thought I'd point out for anyone reading it in the future that I'm married again, to a wonderful woman, and hopefully this will be it for me. I've found the one I'm going to grow old with.