Chain Accident

Last Sunday, I was driving along Choa Chu Kang North 7 (CCKN7) after taking a look at Barang Barang's pre-renovation sale at its Sungei Kadut showroom. For those who know of this high-end furnishing chain, it was recently in financial woes and has been sold off to its more mainstream competitor, Novena Furnishing. Anyways, I had just passed Regent Grove, a condominium near the corner of CCKN7, and saw that a car had stopped by the side of the road to alight a passenger. I immediately applied the brakes and my car stopped half a car's length before the front car. But alas, the car behind me obviously was not paying attention. Because it slammed into the back of my Ford Focus about 4 seconds after I stopped my car. My car, of course, hit the back of the car in front.

As neither my friend and I were aware that there was a car behind us, the impact caught us off-guard and we suffered whiplash consequently. Not that the effect was immediate though. I thought I was fine initially, but what a rude awakening I had the next day. Upon waking up, I realised my neck was so sore I couldn't lift my head up the normal way. I had to rotate my body such that I get up back first. And that was not all. The pain was accompanied by drowsiness and nausea. I went to see the doctor at Raffles Medical Group's (RMG) clinic at Northpoint and had the pleasure of seeing a senior lady doctor. While asking me for details of the accident, she started talking about her financial plight. This should be surprising, but one week ago, I had another experience with a male doctor there who talked to me at length about everything ranging from food to government policies. This was apparently part of my pre-employment examination! So I've come to accept that talkative doctors are part of the value proposition that RMG provides.

To cut a long story short, I was given 2 days' MC for the Monday and Tuesday past by the lady doctor. After going back to work 2 days ago, I still felt unwell and went back to RMG. The male doctor who saw me the first time attended to me and promptly sent me to Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) to get an X-ray. You may know that Yishun recently had its own hospital, the Khoo Teck Phuat Hospital, but its A&E department wasn't open yet. So after having driven from Suntec City where I worked back to Yishun, I had to drive back to town to TTSH. By the time I got there, it was 8.30 pm. It took almost 2 hours to see the doctor, get an exam, receive a rather painful shot and be X-rayed. I was then sent to a room to rest, alongside 15 others in various medical conditions. By the time I was discharged, it was 1 plus in the morning.

If you think the above was the end of my ordeal, it is not. I still had to make a police report so that I can claim compensation from the driver of the car who hit my car. And my car will take 2 weeks to repair, although I was given a Corolla Altis to use in the meantime. If only the accident took place earlier. Barely 4 weeks back, I had spent $2K to repair my engine. If the accident had happened earlier, I could've saved the money. Oh well. I guess I should just be thankful that no one was seriously injured.

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