Thank god...we are safe!

I should have written this blog a few days back, but somehow things were so busy that I did not get a chance at all. The date was May 24 2006. The time was 1:45 PM. We were returning back to office from home after a home cooked meal after months. I was driving the car and there were 3 co passengers - S sitting besides me, H sitting behind me and A sitting on the rear passenger seat. There was something wrong that day since we were getting almost every stop light as RED or YELLOW. It now seem that those were mere warning signals of the impeding danger. The intersection of Shea and 92nd was no different. We were waiting for the stop light to turn green, it did and I hit the accelerator gently..to move the car southwardly on 92nd.
Well, perhaps that was the last time I (or for that matter anybody) hit the accelerator of my car..Ford Taurus...in a flash we were hit by a pickup truck that jumped the red light (at Shea) and slammed into us at 50MPH!! For an instant I just couldnt make out what happened ...our car spun around due to the impact and was facing in the opposite direction when it came to a halt. A who was sitting nearest to the point of impact suffered a consussion and couldn't remember what happened!! I was scared...but mustered strength..came out of the car...dialled 911 and withing minutes the emergency vehicles, including the police arrived on the spot. It took me a while to realize that ours was not the only car involved in the accident. There was a brand new Toyota Camry that was also hit by the same truck (it seems the truck driver lost control and hit the camry) and a Mercedes Benz, which I seriously have no idea of how it got involved.
The police started its investigations and it was a pretty clear case. All the witnessed re-iterated that the truck driver was at fault as he jumped the red light. The paramedics were looking after A who was taken to the hospital for some checkups. Finally, the police investigations were over, a tow truck arrived at the spot and towed the vehicles including ours which was totalled up. Information between the drivers was exhanged and the police took the truck driver in. Finally, after some time the news came in that A was doing fine and there was no cause of worry which gave us some relief. But the trauma of the accident would perhaps still linger on and not to mention the repeated followups with insurance, car rentals, searching and buying a new car and all the issues related to it would still haunt us even days after the accident. Well, in the end I can just say that it was a BAD day.