The day I met a drunk driver Ruby de Vera Philippine Daily Inquirer
October 17, 2009
FOR THE PAST THREE WEEKS, I have been going on my everyday life with only one hand—or to be technical about it, nine fingers. My right thumb and part of my arm and hand are still in a splint. The trait of having opposing thumbs that separates humans from other mammals is taken away from me, albeit temporarily.
It takes an hour for me to bathe properly and another 30 minutes to dress up. Meals are an absolute effort as I can eat with only one hand, and complicated food is out of the question.
The other night, a friend peeled a shrimp for me and cut it to pieces. I wanted to cry at the table.
One Saturday night after a violin lesson I was walking to where the cabs were. I was at the sidewalk of a one-way street, when suddenly all I could see was the ground spinning so fast my brain hardly had time to register that I was rolling on the asphalt, stopping only when my head hit the bumper of a parked jeepney.
I sat up immediately, disoriented while I looked for my things. People on the street went to me, with everyone talking all at once how some speeding and swerving car hit me. I checked myself and found that I was bleeding—my head, face, and nose. Then an old man came up to me. “Are you the one who hit me?” I asked him point blank, still in disbelief that I was almost roadkilled. “Yes,” he said feebly. “Are you drunk?” “Slightly.” He reeked of alcohol.
The next few minutes when I was taken to the emergency room where they dressed my wounds, gave me shots, and X-rayed me, were all a blur. I remember calling my family and friends who lived nearby, because fortunately I was conscious and alert enough to keep my things with me. I was lucky I didn’t have a concussion.
But “lucky” is relative. I had to suffer insane pain due to the wounds on my face—imagine someone pressing a hot iron on your cheeks. White hot, searing, and throbbing pain. Yes, it was that bad. I also had stitches on my head, and countless bruises and lacerations on my body. One giant bruise on my hip had all the colors of the rainbows at one point.
I looked like a horror movie. Most of all, my thumb is fractured; and the surgeon had to put screws, a metal plate, and a pin inside my hand so I can regain normal function of my thumb.
While confined in the hospital, I can drink only through a straw because I couldn’t chew my food properly. My mother had to bathe me, her grown child, because I couldn’t do it on my own. I had to sign my name on documents with a thumbprint of my left hand, because I’m right-handed and it was just my misfortune for my dominant hand to be injured.
But the biggest hurdle is trying not to panic when I see open roads with motorists. I’m afraid to walk on the streets, even more to cross them. I don’t trust stoplights anymore, and I can’t be alone on a street.
Physical and psychological damages I would never have were it not for someone who had too much to drink and still decided to drive home.
Alcohol is a depressant, that’s why people often drink to “relax.” The “relaxing” effect we perceive is actually a decrease in sensation. Vision, hearing and other senses are affected too, with muscle coordination. That’s why when people are drunk they slur and stumble.
Now put a complicated machinery (such as a car) in the hands of someone not in total control of his abilities, and someone is bound to get hurt.
In their 2009 publication Global Status Report on Road Safety, the World Health Organization reports that in 2006, 51 percent of Metro Manila’s total fatalities caused by road traffic are pedestrians. The law on drunk driving is also vague, as there is no set limit for blood alcohol content for offending drivers. Although there is a seatbelt law, only half of the drivers remember to put theirs on. These data are only derived from reported cases.
It is also predicted that by 2020, road traffic injuries would be the third leading cause of deaths worldwide. But it doesn’t have to come to that, because the factors leading to road accidents are actually preventable.
The first is driving under the influence of alcohol, followed by seatbelt use, and road and vehicle design.
Thankfully, I am alive and will be fine. I will have a four-inch scar on my hand to remind me forever never to drink and drive. But others are not so fortunate, too many lives have ended all too soon in the hands of drivers who drank too much and sped the way home.
Meanwhile, I have to learn to trust the universe again, a universe where I can cross the road safely without fearing for my life.
