My Mom

My Mom had a serious car accident a couple of months ago.
She had been visiting my sister at her farm, and was on the way home when it happened. She had just left Camrose, where she was going to stop for coffee. The accident happened about 15-20 minutes south of there, just past the road to Duhamel.
The road was curving to the left, and according to the witness, she just went straight. There were no other vehicles involved, and the witness saw no animals on the road. There weren't even any skidmarks, just a track from the right wheel going down the embankment for about 5 metres, and then pits and divots where the car began to roll. It rolled down the embankment, through a barbed wire fence, and on into the middle of some field. I'm a lousy judge of distance, but she must have rolled about 50 - 75 metres.
If you Google "Single vehicle rollover near Camrose," you can go to the Camrose paper's website and see a couple of pictures of the car where it finally came to rest. The pictures don't really do it justice. The RCMP showed us some pictures that gave some idea of the distance and severity of the accident. Going to the site was a sobering experience, as was crawling around inside the vehicle retrieving my mom's things. Her cell phone survived the accident. The EMS had found her bottom teeth, and we found her top teeth under the front seat. The bottom teeth had a small crack that was repaired.
She's wearing them now.
The RCMP officer figured she must have gone to sleep, but I don't really believe that. She must have been distracted by something in the car, like changing a CD or spilling the coffee. Maybe she had a blackout or a stroke. Probably we'll never know.
The witness talked to her while she was still in the car, and so did the EMS when they pulled her out.
She gave them my dad's phone number, but we didn't get a call until almost four hours after the accident. By then STARS Air Ambulance had already taken her to the University Hospital in Edmonton.
My nephew lives in Edmonton, so he was the first to arrive. We got there a couple of hours later, and got the list of injuries from the doctor. Her left shoulder was broken three times. Her right elbow wasn't just dislocated, it was smashed. She had two ribs on her left side and six ribs on her right side broken. Her pelvis was fractured three times, and her right leg was broken in two places.
There were also a variety of cuts and cruises. When we first saw her, she was covered from neck to toe with a kind of blowup cocoon. There was a breathing tube in her mouth, and all kinds of wires and tubes attached to her body.
It's a miracle she survived.
She has a personal directive that states the sort of life-saving procedures she received were not to be performed. She would have died without them. The directive was not with her, and all the procedures completed by the time we got there. The doctor told us that everything was fixable, but it would be a long journey back.
She has come a long way since the accident, and we are anticipating that she will be given the go ahead to put some weight on the right leg next week, and begin to walk.
She did have some low periods where she questioned whether she should have survived the accident, but now she is looking forward to that first step so she can come home.