Great to hear that Clint is doing well and finding purpose. Loved him in his time with the Flames and bought his book - that was a real eye opener. Hope things continue to go well for him.
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I read this article in the Food Court and started to Tear up. Many of the points hit home with me.
Some of you may remember about 3.5 years ago I live-posted from the scene of a highway pileup. Here is a post I made shortly after on CP and Facebook.
Spoiler!
I was involved in a 21 car pileup on Monday. Here is a recollection of the events and my mindset shortly after.
The day started out with a poor decision. I make money on patients seen and I made the decision to travel to Strathmore so that i did not miss a day of income. With a basement development happening, maternity leave closing in, and Christmas coming I made the decision that not missing a day of work was worth the risk. The drive was rough, but I made it.
I decided to reschedule my last few patients and left for home. This is where my next poor decision was made. I knew the roads were bad and still proceeded to travel back to Calgary. I have a relative in Strathmore that I could have stayed with, but I wanted to be home with family and be able to work the next day in Calgary.
This is where I made a couple good decisions that may have saved my life.
When I came upon the scene (two pickups sideways across the highway) I chose to play it safe and slowly move into the ditch, beside a few other cars, on the left side of the highway. I knew I would not get out again, but the alternatives were trying squeeze by on the right, and maybe getting stuck in a drift near the guard rail, or stay on the shoulder.
The second good decision I made was staying in my vehicle. A few others in the ditch had gotten out and were assessing things. I had thought about getting out as well.
A few moments later a jeep came barrelling along the shoulder (too fast) and smoked one of the pickups. I would have likely been between the two vehicles had I chose to stay on the shoulder.
A few minutes after that a pickup truck, that had pulled onto the shoulder (about where I would have been), got plowed into by another truck. It then struck the back of my vehicle pushing me forward 8ft. Had I been out of my car I may not be here posting as the pickup landed where I could have been standing, beside the driver side door.
If I had decided to go right of the vehicles, it could have been just as bad. A snow-plow parked itself there. A semi plowed into the back of it. The semi driver should be commended as he aimed for the snow plow (instead of cars ) when he knew he couldn't stop in time. I have a feeling the semi's horn blaring will haunt me for a bit, as I feared he may be coming my way.
I am not sure what compelled me to write this. Maybe it is self-therapeutic. I am personally struggling with how to cope with what happened. I think things really hit me when I made it to my house and broke down into tears as I hugged my wife. I then changed the best diaper full of poop I ever have.
My car is heavily damaged and I am sore, but Alive. I put myself into a dangerous situation but decisions during that may have prevented me from it being much worse.
Please, choose wisely when it comes to driving 1000lb death machines.
It was 1.5 years after the accident that a family friend suggested I see a therapist. I was diagnosed with PTSD. It was entirely related to the accident i was in. Looking back at that post there are a lot of things I typed that were big red flags for PTSD, but I did not understand or learn of them until later. The hardest part of it was accepting the diagnosis as I felt that the trauma I experienced was nothing like that experienced by victims of abuse or veterans. This quote from the article ( "PTSD is PTSD. It doesn't matter where you got it" ) is extremely important. It is a Brain Chemistry change and has nothing to do with what the trauma itself is. I truly believe that me getting help really saved me from a dark path of alcohol and divorce. It is extremely easy to self-medicate and take out frustrations on the family.
3.5 years later I still deal with occasional issues related to the accident, mainly Anxiety that did not exist prior. But, I am much better.
Talking about it is very helpful as well. If you read my spoilered post I put certain things in Bold print. Those are phrases that directly point to PTSD. If you ever find yourself in a traumatic situation and say these things, please seek the help of someone. Early Diagnosis helps.
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Clint Malarchuk has new lease on life
