Welcome to Orlando . .

Well, to start off, let me say I absolutely love our new place. It's HUGE and pretty and I love it. We are a little far from some things but can walk to others, like the grocery store, bank, pizza, etc. And they are putting a bunch more stuff in the plaza in front of our apartment complex so it will just keep getting better!

Here's the bad part . . . On Monday (3/3/08), my mom and I went shopping for a couple of things for the new place and we were on our way back to my apartment when we got into a horrible accident on the 528. I was in the middle lane and a semi who was in the fast lane merged over into my lane, right on top of me. All of a sudden I felt a huge thud on my driver's side back quarter panel and since he hit the back corner of my car so hard, he spun my car around and before I knew it we were going backwards in the fast lane. We slammed into the concrete divider between the east and westbound sides and slid along it for several feet before the car finally stopped.

Once we stopped, we were sitting facing the wrong direction, half on the left-hand shoulder and half poking into the fast lane. So I looked behind me to see if the semi pulled over and he hadn't. The guy completely took off and no one who saw the accident stopped to see if we were okay. My mom called 911 and it took 45 minutes for the cop to get there. The ambulance got there right away but they couldn't do anything to help us get out of the middle of the road. They were just there to make sure we were okay, which we were. But that whole time we were sitting backwards in the road praying that nobody hit us.

Once the cop got there, he stopped traffic so that we could move off to the right side of the road out of the way of traffic. About 5 minutes later, some guy rode past us rubber-necking and caused 3-car fender-bender right next to me. At that point, the cop walked over to those cars and started helping them. Now, I'm sorry if this sounds completely horrible but I had been waiting for an hour totally shaken up and really wanted to go home. Couldn't he have radioed some more cops to come and finished my paperwork and let me go first?

I have never been in an accident before and I was completely scared out of my mind. My mom and I are okay, except that we are a little sore from tensing up during the accident. Honestly, it's an absolute miracle that no one hit us while we were spinning out of control. My car has
over $5,000 worth of damage. And I'm more than a little peeved that I'm stuck paying my deductible to have it fixed while that a**hole semi-truck driver gets off with nothing!! We could have been really hurt and he didn't even slow down!! Thank God we have good insurance and my deductible is only $500, which really isn't bad.

Anyway, that all happened 2 days after we moved into town. Welcome back, right? :-) Oh well, it's just a car and I am so grateful that my mom and I were able to walk away without a scratch. Again, I know Someone up there is looking out for us.

~Layne