삼일절, Tuesday, March 1, about 8 pm plus or minus three minutes. My companion and I had just finished teaching a lesson to 이한, 김포's incredibly likable but incredibly frustrating eternal investigator who's been meeting with the missionaries for nearly two years. We were on our way home, waiting at the 원당 사거리 bus stop, 서구, 인천시, 대한민국, when this car came flying off the road. I got hit and thrown through the glass wall at the back of the bus stop, a certain metal pole of which stopped the car's momentum. (Some pictures of the stop are attached.) However, the driver didn't stop flooring it, burning out his tires as I jumped up, sprinted a safe distance down the sidewalk, and laid down in the snow. (It wasn't currently snowing, but had snowed the previous day.) We don't actually know what exactly was going on with the driver; later the same night we heard he had had an emotional/mental breakdown and was in jail, but a few days later we heard he was claiming there was a mechanical issue with his car. In any case, after destroying his tires, he got out and began apologizing to everybody who'd been hit, and a week later he called me just to apologize. Three other people got hit, one of whom had a pretty bad cut on her face, but other than that nobody seemed to be hurt too seriously. My legs and left hand got cut up real good, so I got like a million stitches at the ER (or about twenty, but I think it rounds up). Right now it's looking like I'll have some awesome scars. They took some x-rays which showed no problems, so I got to go home at about 2 am. So for about a week I carry on with doing missionary work, walking around like usual. My legs hurt like nobody's business and then some, but they said they weren't broken, so...
Well they had told us to return to the hospital a few times over the next few days to get all the lacerations washed and whatnot, because I suppose that's not something one can do at home. So the next Monday morning we head to the hospital (a new hospital; I had been transferred on Saturday) expecting a routine visit, but when this new doctor saw how swollen and bruised my ankles and knee were, he said we needed an MRI. (Actually, when he saw my ankles and knee, he told me to lay down and, with absolutely zero warning, stuck the largest needle you've ever seen into my knee and sucked a bunch of blood out. Then he said we needed an MRI.) So we got that done, and it turns out there's a fracture on the plateau of my right tibia (in the knee) (which is apparently something that can't be seen on an x-ray, so let's cut the ER guys some slack), and when it came to technical medical vocabulary, my Korean wasn't quite good enough to fully catch what was wrong with my left ankle, but they said it was pretty messed up one way or the other. Basically, they put splints on both of my legs and told me not to walk for a few weeks. So I called my area doctor (in charge of all missionaries in Japan and Korea) and mission president and filled them in, and they said I'd need to go home for a few weeks while I recover. So on Wednesday, March 9th, I flew back to Texas.
And I've been here ever since. I got released the following day, so a) I'm not currently required to follow all missionary rules, although I am still trying to stick to the daily schedule as much as possible; b) when I do head back to Korea, the time I've spent here in Texas will be added on to the end of my mission, so I'll still get a full two years; c) I'm not currently "Elder Rees", and I don't get to wear the name tag. I've been getting along alright. No, I haven't been completely bedridden; I've been getting around fine via wheelchair and crutches and now, as of today, just one crutch. Progress. I'll likely be ready to go back in two months or less. Thankfully for my sanity, there's a really great Korean restaurant in town.
Other miscellaneous answers to random questions: Yes, I have and brought home a few pieces of the shattered glass, but no, they're not the ones that were actually in my leg and hand; I found them in my coat pockets two days later. My companion was unhurt. No, I didn't see the car coming until a split second before it hit me. Yes, the driver's insurance is covering everything. Yes, I will be able to go back to the same mission. Yes, I'm fully aware that scars earned on my mission will be a hugely valuable asset while dating at BYU.
Just glad I didn't get seriously injured or worse.
사랑으로,
남윤돈
