The phone call you never want to get...

"Hi, this is XXXXX, I'm a staff nurse at the Wrexham Maelor hospital. We have your girlfriend, Sammiboo in. She's been involved in a Road Traffic Accident".

That's the call I received at 7:30 this morning. 20 minutes drive from work later and I'm at the hospital.

Initial impressions aren't particularly good. She's conscious, but she's on a spinal board pending X-ray tests. While this is routine for a traffic accident, it's quite an unnerving sight, particularly when you see someone's face is COVERED in blood, along with ALL of their clothing. So I was a bit worried.
Sammi was up to her eyeballs on morphine , so was a bit groggy, but the jist was that she had come off a dual carriageway on to a slip road (the Wrexham turn off from Oswestry of the A483), and as she was on the slip road, the car has veered to the right, hit the barrier, bounced back across the road, and rolled down an incline. She had to climb out of the car through the passenger window, as it ended up on its roof.

Anyway, to cut (part of) a long story short, Sammi was released from hospital early this afternoon. After finding out that the X-rays came back negative, she was cleaned up, and had wounds dressed. She had glass in her right arm, moderate cuts to the right arm, a large bump on her head, large amounts of small facial cuts (probably from shattering glass, plus her glasses hitting something), a chest impact (probably from the steering wheel), and various other small cuts and bruises. Because of the trauma she'd had, she was given a bit more morphine while they removed the glass from her arm . We couldn't work out how she'd got the glass in her arm though, as she said that the driver's side window didn't smash. The staff at the hospital were very good. (I felt like asking if they knew Gaz, as he's a regular there )
So back at mine, with her parents in attendance, we are working out what to do. We decide that the best plan is for her father and me to go and get her possessions out of the car. So we went to where the police have had it recovered to. Then you see Sammi's car in the middle.

It's bad.

Really bad.

Sammi wanted to come with us, because she wanted to drive the car back to mine.

I want you to click here -> http://gallery.hmallett.co.uk/crash
Then tell me, HOW THE **** DID SHE GET OUT OF THAT IN ONE PIECE?

Then carry on reading.

The car is a total write-off. Any idea of Sammi, or anyone, ever driving it again is nonsense. It just goes to show how the shock affects your perception.
It's rolled hard against some trees/bushes. I went with my neighbour to the crash scene to try and recover some possesions that had fallen out of the car. The trees are badly smashed, where the car has hit them hard. Most of the damage is about 3-4 feet up, where the body of the car would be with it on its roof. However, we noticed some damage to the tree about 7 feet up (higher than my head, and I'm 6'3"), and there was one branch which was freshly snapped 9 feet up in the air.
What made Sammi think that the driver's window didn't smash must have been the shock again. The window space is about 6 inches high, and the roof is totally caved in on the driver's side.

So what happened? Well, no one knows for sure, and I don't want a load of idle speculation on this, but what I think, and what Sammi's dad and my neighbour think (and they are both professional engineers), is that the most likely cause is a failure of the nearside (left-hand side) rear wheel bearing.

The facts that lead us to this conclusion are:

The car smacked the barrier on the right hand side of the road.
The bearing was replaced only a couple of months ago.
The wheel in question was separated from the car. At the moment, we don't know where that wheel came to rest, or at what point it detached from the car.
The outer part of the bearing is shattered. Apparently, when a bearing comes apart AS A RESULT OF an accident, the most common thing to happen is that the inner part remains attached to the car, and the outer part remains attached to the wheel. In this case (you can see in the pictures), the inner part is attached to the car, as it half of the outer part. The other part of the outer part of the bearing is either on the wheel, or in the car, where it has been recovered by the recovery people. This indicates that it MAY not be THE RESULT of the accident, but possibly the cause.
The fragment of the outer bearing, and the part of the rear brake caliper that came off were put in the car by the recovery people. Other parts of the car that were on the roadside (such as wing mirrors) were left there. I think that the most likely reason for them picking up these parts was that they were in the road. It appears that the left-hand side of the car wasn't impacted until the car left the road, so IF they were in the road, then that would mean they separated from the car BEFORE it was impacted, again indicating that this was more LIKELY the be the cause of the accident than a result of it.

So Sammi is now back at her parents, being looked after. She's feeling a bit better, but is still very shook up, and is obviously suffering from the effects of the incident. Personally, I'm quite shook up too, but I'm also very thankful that Sammi has got off relatively lightly. This could have been so much worse.... I don't really want to think about it, but it could have been REALLY bad

Apologies for the length of the post, and the language, and the quality of the pictures, but Sammi's got a lot of good friends here, and she wants you all to know that she's OK.

H

god damn am sorry to hear that pal

**** H I have only read the first bit but I will now read properly. Hope sammi is ok.

am glad she is on the mend

wow thats a big hit,glad she is on the mend H

That is awful.

i'm just so glad shes okay.

JESUS CHRIST! I'm ever so sorry mate I hope Sammi is ok & returns to full health soon!

i was dreading this thread

she made the local paper, i put 2 and 2 together and got the result i wasnt hoping for

still not to sure where it was by, it mentioned b&q roundabout in the paper

Michelle and I send our sincere best wishes to Sammi for a speedy recovery. Saw the photos and can only wonder how she got out.

We've both had phone calls of a similar nature and can imagine how you felt H. Thank goodness things weren't any worse.

omg so sorry to have read that send her our regards on both the behalf of me and on behalf of the forum. Glad to hear she's ok though, could've been alot worse

bloody hell glad shes ok cars can be replaced no matter how much you love them

Wow, is all that comes to mind, that car is a right mess, its amazing she's come out of it with the few injuries she has. Hope she has a quick recovery

best wishes and a full and speedy recovery, jai and fal

That put a shiver down my spine.
Get well soon sammi

My god!!!

Glad to hear she`s ok(ish)

Send her my love