My Life Changed

My life changed after the truck rear-ended me.

by Annmarie Throckmorton 2021

CRIMINALS BEWARE: the elderly take compensatory security measures.

Listed below are the ways that my life changed after I was rear-ended by a Jimmie Truck while I was stopped in construction traffic on 07-12-16.

This is the IL Motorist Report that I filed, as the police wrote it up.

07-12-16 @ 4 PM – Unit 2 (Throckmorton car-gold Hyundai) was rear-ended by Unit 1 (Lamb truck-red Jimmy) while Unit 2 was fully stopped behind stopped traffic. Unit 2 was completely stopped in left lane behind traffic that was also completely stopped for construction or maybe for removal of construction equipment.

Accident occurred while both units were heading north on Main Street near Avanti's Italian Restaurant just south of Main St. & Dry Grove Street, in Bloomington, IL.

Throckmorton and Lamb were the only people involved in the accident, and they inspected Unit 1 and Unit 2 (their vehicles) together while on the scene: Unit 2’s rear tail light area was damaged. Lamb showed Throckmorton that Unit 1’s bumper was loose.

Throckmorton was hurt in center of back, neck, and behind eyes. Throckmorton went to OSF ER right after accident, where CT-scans indicated “no significant injury”, ER report said “initial encounter neck pain, acute.” (Should have read neck and back pain.) Throckmorton’s hip area hurts a lot when walking.

Lamb claimed he had his vehicle insurance paperwork at home, but it has been a full month and he still hasn’t provided it. Lamb appears to be uninsured driver. Throckmorton was disoriented by crash and left scene after exchanging contact information, also Lamb left scene. Within half-an-hour Throckmorton realized she should request police report and make Allstate insurance report, so Throckmorton called both.

After four years of lawyering my erstwhile attorney got an $16 thousand dollar settlement from my insurance company, of which I received $2 thousand after some confusing insurance machinations and my attorney's fee; and she got a $13 thousand dollar judgment against the driver of the truck that hit me. The latter judgment is probably uncollectible as my attorney promptly abandoned the case saying she does not do collections. On several occasions, she express extreme sympathy for uninsured driver who hit me. She's an odd duck.

• I cannot sleep on my painful left hip & I limp from it.

• Before the accident I could walk for about a block, now I have to lay down after walking from my bedroom to my living room due to dizziness and a feeling that I am losing consciousness.

• I have to plan my household chores so that I can lay down to recover between each chore; for example, I cook (lay down), do the dishes (lay down), start laundry (lay down), make bed (lay down), finish laundry (lay down), pay bills (lay down), and so forth.

• Before the accident I could climb my basement stairs, now I have to rest on each step up, and as my washer/dryer are in my basement, this is really a problem for me. I plan so that I only do one load of laundry per day.

• Before the accident I went to smaller stores for inexpensive staples, now I have to go to major grocery store with electric carts because I cannot push a cart around even a small store like Aldi. This costs me more money in groceries.

• My ability to do necessary life tasks is severely diminished, and I am not doing many things that are necessary to keep my life going. For example, I need to downsize from my house to senior housing, but I am unable to lift much more than 5# of sugar without a lot of strain in my face/neck/shoulders and breathlessness. I do not know how I will manage this necessary life transition.

• I am too ill to see my doctor on regular basis. The exertion of going to my doctor is overwhelming.

• I am unable to catch my breath enough to exercise as I was doing prior to accident.

• accelerated aging—when you are young you have a better chance to heal, but at my age I have just continued to deteriorate after the accident. My short-term injuries have lasted, even increased, and become long-term physical injuries.

• I have massive, constant pain in my abdomen, even breathing hurts, perhaps caused by scar tissue after rear-ending slammed my internal organs back-and-forth. I remember them reverberating like jelly.

• I have increased neck, shoulder, back, and hips pain, that continues to get worse with time.

• lost fitness—I exercised enthusiastically all my life, the accident robbed me of the reward of that fitness. (Acknowledging that age had already lessened my fitness, I was still significantly fitter than many women of my age that I knew.)

• my mobility—went from hard-to-walk into a store from the parking lot, to hard-to-walk across a room in my home. That is a huge, life-changing as it impacts housekeeping, self-care, etc. For example, it used to take me half an hour to get ready to go somewhere, now I set the alarm to begin getting ready two hours before I must leave. That is a huge, sad difference.

• my social life—has diminished to essentially nothing. I could not keep up with my Mahjong group of friends due to pain sitting for several hours to play. I dropped out of all my Normal Senior Center activities. For example, it hurt too much to sit for several hours in the bridge and watercolor groups. I stopped playing bunko (a dice game geared for senior exercise), which I had really enjoyed because my hips hurt too much to get up out of chair to move with each turn. The no-impact senior-group aerobics instructor tried to help me stay in the class, but I could not even manage by exercising in a chair. I now do a little exercise (3 minutes or so) at home daily by laying on my back for support. I really miss exercising in a group.

• expense and time—of medical treatments, doctor appointments took away from the relatively short time I have left and caused me sadness.

• I have emotional fears of driving—that I never had before. I turned from a confident driver to a very, very defensive driver. I used to enjoy driving a lot, taking weekend trips just for fun, now since the accident I dread driving. I am afraid of driving.

•For years, an elderly woman, have been burdened with resolving this legal matter while the careless, young defendant who caused the accident has avoided the consequences.