What if this morning you had stopped your truck in a space across the street from the CVS on Concord Street near Union Ave in Framingham; maybe you wanted a quick soda or a coffee on your way to whatever it is you were doing. You'd put it in park, shut off the engine, and unbuckled your seat belt. But you haven't opened the door yet, because you can see (and hear) the massive dump truck coming up behind you, too far over in its lane—maybe you'll crawl across the seat and exit on the passenger side, since you don't really want to step out into traffic.
---Except W H A M ! the dump truck clips the corner of your rear bumper. Your pickup lurches diagonally forward—stiffly, because the body doesn't softly crumple like a car's—and you're catapulted through the windshield, through the air over an empty parking space in front of you, and into a metal parking meter mounted on a sturdy cement-filled pipe.
---You come to briefly in the ICU, but you won't remember it. You have multiple skull fractures and severe traumatic brain injury; you probably would not have survived the head trauma, except that Metrowest Medical Center is only a few blocks away and there happened to be some EMTs nearby. You survived . . . barely.
---You stay in intensive care for a month, running up bills over a million dollars. Your caseworker puts you on MassHealth, which you'll need during the estimated six months-to-a-year of rehabilitation you'll need. State and federal funds pay your medical bills, and your health insurance company is grateful they don't have to pick up the tab.
---Who knows if you'll ever be able to work again; you'll be lucky to be able to still walk and speak somewhat coherently. Most people with your level of injuries would have died. You'll depend on Department of Transitional Assistance benefits (aka Food Stamps) for at least a year or two, if not for the rest of your life. And hopefully you won't resent the disability money you'll live on—after all, you've paid into the system all these years. Maybe you won't see "wellfare" benefits in quite the same way anymore. And maybe you'll even be able to work a job again someday; maybe not.
Or maybe you didn't stop at CVS this morning after all and just continued on your way. If you didn't, you're lucky. Don't forget it.
