The Dreaded Phone Call...

It was pizza night at mom and dads house on Thursday and only Nic and I were there with my mom.  We decided to start eating since I had a dodgeball game to get to at 6:30.  We were just about done when my mom's cell phone rang.  It was dad letting her know he was in an accident.  I could hear what he saying so I hurried and round the kids up and we drove to the scene.  It was north of 4th and Wall at the end of the ball park.  I jumped out of our moving vehicle to to run to the scene.  Dad had 2 EMT's working on him so I tried to get to him through the passenger door but couldn't open it.  I was then asked if this was family and to give them information. I did and surprisingly did pretty well with being responsive to their questions.  I was finally able to get to my dad and talk with him.  He was coherent the entire time he was very shaken up and his sentences were a little out of the norm for him but I was just glad he was alive! The EMT's kept telling me to try to talk him into taking the ambulance but he is very stubborn and kept refusing. He just really wanted to see my mom and kept asking for her.   Finally mom showed up and after dad said he wanted her to take him up and tried to move he realized it wasn't going to happen and agreed to take the ambulance.  There had been two ambulances there but since dad kept refusing they sent the other vehicles passengers in them to get checked out.  Though they said dad was the worst out of them all.  So they called for another ambulance which took about 20 min. to get to the accident.  By the time it had arrived dad was in shock and trembling and shaking pretty badly.  It took 5 of them to get him out and onto the stretcher.  When on the stretcher dad was very concerned about his SD card that was in his coat pocket and wanted me to make sure it was still there.  But I couldn't because they had loaded him into the ambulance.  The police officer then pulled me aside to tell me what had happened and said he would be up at the hospital to tell my mom and dad as well.  He said that the couple were arguing and that the husband who was the passenger decided to be a dink and jerked the steering wheel.  She then jerked it the other way to avoid an accident and over corrected crossing 3 lanes and hitting my dad head on.  My dad said he had no time to respond.  He said he was minding his own business when all of a sudden he saw headlights and then felt impact giving him no time to brake. It was pretty upsetting to hear how this happened and I couldn't believe that it all happened with their 7 year old in the back.
The hospital was long and slow.  After being admitted they took him back for x-rays and did all kinds of tests to which they all came back with great news that there wasn't serious damage and no broken bones. He was able to leave the hospital about 4 1/2 hours later with a few stitches in his eyebrow and knee.  The tests said nothing was broken but he knows there are some deep muscle problems and that things will take quite a while to heal.
It is very hard to see dad in pain since I have never seen it before.  He never asks for help and never shows that he is in pain when he is.  But these past few days he has had to ask for the help because the pain at times is pretty unbearable.  Which is hard on all of us because we know it must be pretty bad.  Today he was able to go to the bathroom on his own which is a pretty big improvement though he still needs help flushing.  We are just thankful to have him with us and we are so glad things weren't worse.  We know that he was being watched over and could feel Gaven near.  It will be a long recovery but we are counting the tender mercies and are glad that he gets to recover.