[throwaway3b03]

I'm so sorry to hear about your loss.

Slightly over a week ago, a car ran a red light and hit my dad. He was severely injured and suffered a severe TBI. Doctors were giving an unfavorable prognosis. He was in a deep coma, with a GCS of ~5. My whole family was in a complete state of shock. We couldn't really feel anything. My mom somehow kept repeating to herself that he's going to get well, she just couldn't face the fact that she could lose him. As for myself, after researching every tidbit of information I could find about brain injuries, DAI, cases, treatments, I simply couldn't keep my optimism. I was very concerned about the very brief information we were getting from the doctors. I was perplexed as to why they're not actively monitoring his ICP, when his case and most protocols would suggest that that was the right thing to do (i'm not even sure if they did, they definitely didn't use an invasive technique). I was asking left and right about the medication he was on, whether he was being given things like amantadine, which research seemed to suggest was extremely helpful. I was left in the dark. He was given cerebrolysin, OTOH.

I started feeling a huge pain in my chest, and looking forward I just couldn't see myself functioning without him. He was and still is probably the most important person in my life. I was looking back and imagining that him getting well again would simply be the happiest, most positive life I could ever imagine. The life I used to have before seemed like heaven even though I wasn't perceiving it as such at the time.

Our days simply revolved around the visiting period of about an hour when we are allowed to visit him in the ICU. They still do, but the tension in the air is clearly a lot less intense. My dad somehow made great progress. He's mostly lucid now, he still can't talk, but we communicate a lot through glances, hand holding. He's still intubated, although he can breath on his own for hours. And his CTs show a great reduction in most of his brain lesion. We're definitely not out of the woods yet, but his progress/change is like night and day.

I am (probably) extremely lucky. But our lives will never be the same again.

[pmarreck]

While I don't have much faith in general Level 5 self-driving car autonomy, I DO have faith in AEBS (automated emergency braking system) and other more-easily-implemented systems that would largely prevent the stupidest sorts of human errors (like running red lights, stop signs, A-pillar blind spots in turns from oncoming traffic/bicycles/pedestrians, etc.) Just... basic "harm prevention" tech would go a long way IMHO, like the system in Teslas that keeps the interior at a survivably-cool temp if it's hot inside, because loving parents can and do sometimes still forget their kids inside.

I have a friend whose stepfather just got T-boned a few weeks ago in #Floriduh by a guy who ran a stop sign "because I was running late for work and there usually isn't any cross-traffic at that intersection"... Until there is. "How to not take bad risks" is something I wish was taught in school, because people do not seem to understand how to evaluate risk (especially repeated low risk but with very bad outcome if it hits). Now my friend's father is still in the hospital as well, weeks later.

Sorry for venting. I'm really sorry you're going through this, I just wish we were already at the point of preventing these dumb errors by people.