Blame the Victim

[scandium]

A bit of a mini-rant here after an (ongoing) experience I've just had, and because its still ongoing I'm going to be intentionally vague about some details:

Last weekend while crossing the street (walking across) after midnight, I was hit by an SUV on the 4 lane highway I had to cross on my way home. There was almost no traffic, it was a clear night, I thought the street was clear and had not, at any point, seen (or even heard) the SUV that hit me - my only warning was the impact itself.

Anyway, while I was lying in the street a witness called 9/11 and the police were the first to arrive. I was concious and could hear what was being said to me and around me. I was asked, at least once, while lying on the road curled into a fetal poston and trying to catch my breath (I thought, among other things, that my ribs had been broken) if I had been drinking or had taken any street drugs (no on both counts).

Later, in the ER, while still attached to heart/blood pressure monitoring equipment and hooked up to a respirator, while lying flat on my back and in a neck brace, and after the ultrasound of my internal organs but before the CT scans and X-rays, I'm visited by another police officer. He again asks, (while I can still only barely speak) if I'd had anything to drink or taken any drugs, and then mentions before departing that he'd popped in to let the driver, who he said was "very shaken up about the whole thing", know that I was "ok".

Then several days later, after being discharged from the hospital, I'm visited by an insurance adjuster from the driver's insurance company. He shows me some pics of the damage to the SUV, mentions the dollar figure of the assessment that the damage my body had inflicted upon it, takes a statement from me and on his way out the subject of "liability" comes up, and he makes a point of mentioning that I had not crossed at the crosswalk that is much further up the street (and in my opinion more dangerous to cross at night because of the speed people drive at and the limited visibility there to both driver and pedestrian) and asks me if the police had ticketed me for jaywalking.

I should add that I'd crossed three of the 4 lanes I needed to cross to get to the sidewalk on the other side before being hit in the 4th lane by the driver who never saw me, and who then stopped and used their cell phone to call a friend/family member but not 9/11 (that was done later and by somebody else). And somehow, at every point along the way, this has been portrayed - from my perception- as my fault.

I should mention that, at any rate, I was extremely lucky. While there's quite a bit of tissue/tendon/ligament damage (and cuts, scrapes, and bruises and swelling like you wouldn't believe) nothing was broken and no internal organs were damaged. But at the same time I can't keep from feeling very bitter about the whole thing.