Letter to ICBC

ICBC:

I have already said all of this to your reps before I was treated badly enough that I finally sought legal council. All of this should be on file.

I was run over on a lit crosswalk on July 16th at around 11:30 pm in Dawson Creek, B.C.
I was looking very closely when I walked because it was late at night but a friend of mine was in town to go to the Journey concert.
A white car stopped in the near lane (on my left). We did the little ‘acknowledged’ wave to each other and I looked again and there was nobody coming from the right. I started walking, when I got past the near car he continued on his way, I looked right after him and into the far lane. There was still no one coming. I glanced to my left and then back to the right and saw headlight bearing down on me extremely quickly. I had time to realize that he wasn’t slowing down and I started to run. I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to outrun him. He hit me right below the knee on the right side and just above the knee on the left side (It was a minivan). I went up on the hood and then (this part is hard to remember) I think I hit my head on the windshield and rolled onto the pavement on the far side of the cab. I may have briefly blacked out at this point. It’s extremely hazy.
My cellphone was smashed but I was able to tell my husband that I had been hit by a car. The taxi didn’t stop for nearly a city block where he finally put on the brakes. He didn’t come back until he saw me getting up. I think he would have continued if I hadn’t gotten up.
My left shoe had been knocked off and it was raining a little. I was in very bad shock and all I could think was that I didn’t know how I was going to walk to the hotel where my friend was staying because my leg hurt and that I had to find my shoe. That and just elation that I was able to get up and walk. At that time I felt little pain, I was in extreme shock.
After a very very long pause the cab driver backed up. He asked if I was ok. I cursed at him and told him of course not, he had run me over. I was very obsessed with finding my shoe and angry that my cellphone was broken. I gave my husband the license plate number and he said he was going to call the police and told me to stay there but I was very confused and don’t remember him telling me that. He told me to lie down and not move (he’s a paramedic but he was out of town at the time.) I also don’t remember him telling me that.
The man’s name was Rick Muir although at the time he only said his name was ‘Rick’. He helped me find my shoe which was stuck under the driver’s side wheel well of the car.He worked for Golden Cab. I gave the license plate number to my husband to report it.  The cab driver kept asking if I was ok and I kept repeating that I wasn’t ok at all. I was extremely confused and told him to take me to the hotel where I was going to meet my friend Janice after the Journey concert.  I wandered around the hotel for awhile (I don’t remember what I did except that I bought I coke from the machine).
The cab driver dropped me there even though I repeatedly told him that I was NOT ok and was VERY upset. He did not wait to see if I was ok but went off and left me. He later went to the police station and filed a false police report.

The incident was ruled 100% Rick Muir’s fault by the way.

Left leg, you can see the edge of the license plate imprint in this one.

I found myself outside of the hotel at a picnic table. I had missed many phone calls from the police and my husband. I managed to pick up the damaged phone and told my husband where I was. The paramedics picked me up from the picnic bench.
A police officer named Constable Gould came and questioned me as they put the neck collar on me. He asked me more questions at the hospital. I don’t remember these but he says that I said I didn’t want to press charges and so they closed the case. Please bear in mind that I was completely in shock and hadn’t even had my neck x-rayed at this point. No follow up was done. The Officer said as I wasn’t in a coma, dead and was able to walk so that my injuries were ‘minor’ and closed the case.

(These picture were taken while I was still in the hospital the night of the accident AFTER the police had come and left and never came back. The swelling was about as big as a large apple.)

I spent the next two weeks in total shock and then tried to return to my property and found I was unable to even do the most basic of work and my pain level escalated as I came out of shock. I started to seek medical attention in a more concentrated way and we discovered that I was unable to even walk back and forth between the building site for the house and the trailer without suffering extreme pain after.

Since then I have been diagnosed with concussion, whiplash, severe spinal pain and extreme PTSD. I have several doctors notes saying I can’t work. I used to write science articles, medical blogs and professionally edit as well as give accupressure, massage and aromatherapy which I am no longer able to do. Trying to write anything from the rational part of my brain causes my brain to freeze and I lose days of time. My husband found me crying at the crosswalk where I had been hit after I tried to take down a simple transcription of an interview. I make numerous errors and it takes me a long time to write articles that it used to take me under an hour to do. The articles are worth at most $12 each and I have to do a great many in a day to make money at it but I used to be able to do them in under an hour at most.
ICBC has said because I still write poetry and fiction that may ONE DAY earn money that I am not TOTALLY disabled and won’t pay ANY lost wages. They have very reluctantly started to pay for my medication which is around $300 a month. I was very healthy before and rarely saw the doctor. I have received next to nothing from ICBC, my husband now works 3 JOBS to support me. ICBC refused to follow the occupational therapist guidelines, has ignored doctors notes from two different doctors and a psychiatrist saying I am totally unable to work and further more has used my efforts to continue to keep ANY REPUTATION at all as a writer as evidence that I don’t deserve any help.
I want to return to work one day and it is only by trying to keep social media presence that I have any hope of doing so and yet I am penalized by your organization that has treated me dreadfully.
My psychiatrist has written a letter specifying that writing a story is not the same as writing a scientific blog and that I cannot do any work for pay.
I am going to be going to the media next. The cab company that ran me over filed a false police report and said that he ‘may have hit me with his mirror’ and then filed a claim with ICBC for the huge dent I left in the hood of his minivan.
I will continue to seek to tell the world of the gross injustices and have already been contacted by the CBC for information.
The police and victim’s services have been absolutely no help and although I have a lawyer ICBC has demanded that I travel to Vancouver to see their private specialists before giving me anything other than returns on my medication receipts. The medications I am on are extremely heavy and I still have a hard time going outside and traveling in the car is a flashback nightmare for me.
The cab driver didn’t receive any punishment. He still drives for Golden Cabs, the same company accused of running a sex ring a few years ago. I have to go in for surgery and then be questioned by ICBC lawyers within a week afterwards and have been treated like a criminal for being run over. It’s been almost as traumatizing dealing with ICBC as it was to be run over. On top of everything PTSD brings back previously dealt with traumas from the past so I have had to deal with traumas from my childhood that I had been at peace with.
In the years to come I may get some of the damages etc back but in the meantime I must live off of the money my husband makes and he must take care of me as well. ICBC has entirely ignored the occupational therapist’s recommendations for assistance and does whatever it wants whenever it wants.
I have attached pictures so you can see the extent of the damages. Fortunately nothing was broken but the fact that it wasn’t was a miracle. Anything I do to try to keep any semblance of the life I once had ICBC reads as me not being ‘totally disabled’. I express myself through poetry and they say this proves that I am still able to write but being asked to write a science article is not the same as writing creative fiction and even so I write much less than I used to.
I spend days in pain and am on heavy pain killers.
My husband and I were supposed to pour the foundation for our new house on some land we own and that had to be called off. We had to get rid of all our animals as I couldn’t take care of them and my husband had to work. I’ve lost everything except what is left of my writing career.I try to do some charity work to keep my reputation in this competitive field alive.  I had been nominated for an Aurora award and worked hard to build a reputation and make friends in the field. Now for the second year I’ve had to cancel all public appearances except for a brief local one that I made. I had to leave before I could even do the workshop I was supposed to do and only read a few poems and yet was hurting for days and days after just from that much work.
I have seen Rick Muir and other Golden Cab drivers driving like maniacs and many people in town complain about them.
After hearing that the case has been closed and no legal steps have been taken against a man who has struck three people in the past and one person after me I have fallen into utter despair and feel that we have no recourse, no justice and the only system is there to punish anyone who survives.

I have a lawyer who has also been ignored in his efforts to seek financial assistance for me and I am supposed to have an ICBC lawyer come and question me a week after I am scheduled for surgery. You guys are EVIL. I did NOTHING wrong and you have yelled at me and made me feel horrible since the first day Doug Warenko from Cranbrook called me at 830 am and started yelling at me that I was a faker and he would make sure that I wouldn’t’ see a penny from this.

I do not appreciate being treated like crap after being run over. ICBC has done NOTHING to help me return to work, nothing to help me feel better, just persecuted me.

The way I have been treated has traumatized me in a whole new way from how the accident traumatized me and i will make sure that the world knows how I have been disabused. From Rick Muir still having his driving license to being forced from building a house into barely being able to pay for medication and renting a house when I should be living in my own completed house. You’ve put my relationship with my husband in jeopardy from putting all the financial pressure and all the pressure of taking care of me on his shoulders. The accident already ruined our physical relationship.Our second anniversary is coming up and then I have surgery a few days after. I hate my life now. I hate the medication I have to take and most of all I hate how you have treated me. You are very very bad people and when people pay liability insurance it is to help protect people like me.You keeping it from me is criminal.

I now have a lawyer (after being yelled at repeatedly by your representatives and being treated horribly).

I don’t have my claim number on me but I’m sure you can find it, I’m not well enough to go looking through my things for it and a lot of my stuff is on my land where it has gotten wrecked by spending a winter in the snow when when it should have been in my brand new house.  I am not the only one who has horror stories to tell about their treatment by you guys and the fact that it has nearly been a year and I am still struggling to survive and you have refused to acknowledge all the medical files info and doctor’s notes and opinions shows me what a fraud this is.

I am not going to stop talking about how badly I have been treated. I have a lot of people who care about me and my next step is to post a copy of what I have sent to the CBC to my blog site.

I deserve help. I deserve financial help. I deserve to have the OT’s report and my doctor’s listened to and I won’t stop talking about this. I have nothing but time because as I am more and more traumatized by my treatment I become more and more vulnerable to the PTSD that I suffered. I can’t even afford to get physio or chiropractor treatments.

I have no expectation that you will do anything helpful for me EVER and because I have no hope all I have is my voice and my voice is still loud and strong. Until I am treated with decency and respect no one will hear the end of this.