For someone who's been involved in a car accident and already experiencing anxiety and fear of another accident, there's nothing worse than watching through your rear view mirror as a vehicle approaches you from behind with no apparent intent of slowing down or stopping. Traffic on the 405 south merged lanes again and again creating such gridlock that everything came to a complete stand still. I was following behind my friend and stopped 2 car lengths behind her. I then had enough time to not only watch the car approaching me clearly but also to consider my chances of escaping before the car reached me.
Not only did I figure I may be hurt worse without the protection of the car but I had my friend's two, little dogs in the car with me. Later, my friend had told me that she had been watching me through her rear view mirror, wondering what I was watching through my rear view mirror. I was hit from behind so hard that his car and the car I was driving was completely totaled. My friend's car only suffered a dent to the rear of her car. Obviously, my body automatically tensed up because I was in total and complete terror at what I was witnessing so it's reasonable to assume that I suffered physical injury and psychological trauma.
It's over a year later and I was just told by my attorney yesterday that she was unable to get more than the $6000 offered. The other complaints stating that Mercury will do whatever they can to pay out a claim is true. I know this attorney personally so I know she was trying her hardest and that she was being honest with me. From all I've read about Mercury Insurance lately, I have no doubt that they would "pay $50,000 to expert witnesses to avoid paying out an insurance policy of $25,000."
I admitted to Mercury Insurance and every doctor and chiropractor I received treatment from that I had been involved in a previous accident 10 years ago when I was hit by a driver running a red light.
It's no secret that I've experienced a lot of pain since that accident of in fact I've been dependent on narcotic pain meds since a month after that car accident when it was discovered that my pregnancy had terminated (according to doctors who compared my ultrasounds, my baby died within 24 hours of the car accident.) I admitted to suffering headaches and chronic pain in my neck, this was due to multiple bulging discs in my cervical spine as noted in an MRI taken Nov. 2001. It was also noted that my neck was lacking the natural curve of a healthy, normal neck. No xrays, mris, or treatment was ever performed on my lower back because I only suffered mild discomfort which eventually subsided. Although I experienced chronic pain, with the help of narcotic pain meds, I was able to function normally for the most part. I could even be seen doing cart wheels on a good/low pain day.
After this March 31 rear ending accident I began experiencing new and incredibly extreme pain in my lower back. At present, I can't do much of anything. I cry every day and night because the pain is so debilitating. I rarely, if ever leave my home. A few months after the accident I barely turned at my waist to grab a paper that was behind me and I felt the worse kind of pain, like my spine and been crushed and then ripped out of my body. I tried to blow it off and down play it but within 5 minutes I was in such agony I thought I would die. I couldn't sit or lay down, I was stuck in this position of half sitting, half laying. I was given pillows to prop below me as support because any movement caused increased, insane pain. I could barely move for almost 2 weeks so the biweekly chiro appointments I had were canceled and I later I was told that I'm jeopardizing my case by not regularly seeing the chiro. There were also complaints that I was consistently late to my appointments.
Before this recent accident I was a nervous passenger but after this accident, I was a crazy, freak of a person who suffered extreme anxiety and panic attacks. Every time I am sitting in the passenger seat, it's torture for me. I feel as though I'm suffering a heart attack and in fact I now suffer from dangerously high blood pressure. After taking forever to dress myself (requiring several rest periods and sometimes even a nap) and prepare for the chiro appts I would then suffer the overwhelming anxiety that accompanies phobias.
Every car appears to be coming right at us and it appears that the driver of the vehicle I'm in is going to crash in to every car. I cry, I scream, I yell, "Stop!" I distract the driver with my uncontrollable behavior, I've even grabbed the driver's arm in an attempt to make them stop or avoid a collision (or so it appeared) I remember that a guy almost fell from his bike because the sounds of me screaming in the car (all windows rolled up) 10 feet away startled him so badly. I don't know why I can't overcome this, why I can't rationalize it in my head so that I'm not posing a danger to both myself and the driver.
For 9 months I suffered the torture of traveling to my appointments so that a warm compress and maybe electrical stimulation could be given to me as part of my treatment. I was in too much pain for any kind of chiro adjustments, I couldn't even handle the rollers moving below me as I lay upon the traction table that heated up, an alternative to having warm compresses layered upon my back as I lay there for almost an hour twice a week.
All the time and energy, not to mention pain and suffering I endured so that I could satisfy what is considered to be normal procedure following a physical trauma was for nothing because Mercury Insurance refuses to pay out more than $6000 to me for this claim filed in response to their insured's careless driving habits. Both the insured and his passenger initially admitted that they had been distracted by their phones and didn't realize the consequences of their lack of attention until just before crashing in to me. I clearly saw him coming straight towards me until just before impact. I remember noticing what appeared to be an attempt on his part to avoid the collision by swerving to his right but it was too little, too late for how fast he was barreling towards me.
I was driving my mom's car so I immediately called her and she advised me to contact Auto Club, the insurance company for whom she had her auto policy. I was able to start the car I was driving and pull it off to the side but the car of the driver who rear ended me had to have a tow truck remove his vehicle because it was so badly damaged. Upon seeing them take pictures of the cars with their cell phones I asked for copies which subsequently he had posted to facebook, allowing me to save copies of my own.
Luckily, Auto Club reimbursed my mom for the replacement of a car almost comparable to hers that required almost a month of searching to find. Mercury offered no help in the matter regarding her car, they sent a check for $1000 less than what she had received from Auto Club so she actually avoided a bigger loss of that which she would have suffered if she had waited for Mercury Insurance $16000 I've incurred in medical expenses, an unknown amount of my time (and that of the person who is driving me to appointments, lawyer's office, etc), I have taken several breaks while typing this out but I can't continue. Will I be able to save this until I am able to return and finish? It doesn't matter. It is what it is and if I dont lay down and try like hell to
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