[DARISC]

Glad you're ok, Randy.

One rainy night I T-boned a station wagon that ran a red light. My little econo-box was totaled. Two squad cars arrived, an officer asked if I was injured, I said no, then as the officer questioned me further, two tow trucks arrived and started hooking up the cars. I interrupted the cop, saying, Hey, they're going to tow the cars and no one's made any measurements and diagram!

Get this - the cop tells me, We don't do that if it's raining and there are no injuries. I was furious and said, Well I'm injured! The cops says, You just said you weren't. Yeah, well now my back hurts and I'm having my wife take me to the hospital as soon as she gets here. I want a report with all the diagrams and measurements. This wasn't my fault! The cop gave me a dirty look, called off the tow trucks and a team of two officers then took the measurements and made the diagrams.

So, even though I felt fine, I went to the hospital and got, very thoroughly, checked out by the emergency room doc, who told me that it was a good thing that I had come in because I may have suffered internal injuries from the seat belt. I was cleared, went home and went to bed, felt just fine.

When I awoke, I tried to turn to sit up and get out of bed and fell back flat in pain. The left side of my torso, from hip to neck felt like I'd been slammed by a 300 lb tackle.

I had my wife drive me back to the hospital where they reviewed all the x-rays and tests from the previous night and I was told it was soreness from that half of my body violently moving forward against the shoulder belt on impact with the wagon. My right side was not sore, as it had been restrained by the belt which crosses over that shoulder.

I healed with no therapy required and my insurance co. handled my claim - the wagon driver was found at fault - but never ticketed. Had I not "lied" to the cop about being injured, who knows what kind of fight with the insurance companies that probably would have led to.