Wedding Horror Story

I actually wrote this on Saturday, but for some reason it only posted to my IJ and not my LJ, so I'm reposting it now.

So, today my parents were supposed to go to the wedding of the son of a friend of theirs.

When they got there, the could tell that things were a bit off, because normally there are ushers to take you to your seat, but none of the wedding party could be seen. Sure enough, after a while the priest gets up and announces that the wedding has been canceled. Uh oh.

Unfortunately it wasn't just that someone had gotten cold feet.

The groom had borrowed his uncles classic Mustang for the wedding, and I guess older cars handle a lot differently than modern cars. He was driving (faster than he probably should have) while talking to his bride on the phone, when he veered off the road a bit and hit the gravel. I don't really know what happened after that, but the car flipped and hit a hydro pole. His best man was in the car too and is fine, but the groom, is definitely not.

The damage:
-2 punctured and collapsed lungs.
-His face is just *broken* (classic car, no air bags. His cheek bones, his nose, his jaw, all broken).
-Too many broken ribs to count.
-His pelvis bone was crushed on both sides (they've done surgery to put steel pins in).
-All his limbs are broken.
-He nicked his urethra, which they've had to go in and fix, since that can be fatal (he also nicked his liver, but they're going to leave it for now).

His parents where driving in a different car right behind, and were the ones to pull the groom out of the car; they though he was dead. I can't imagine what it was like for his bride, who heard it all over the phone. Last I heard she was still at the hospital in her wedding dress. I guess the emergency response was really fast though, which was lucky. They had him air lifted to the Ottawa Civic (the big hospital in town) where he went straight into surgery. First on his face, then into a cat scan to check for brain damage, and then into surgery to stop some of the internal bleeding, patch up the urethra, and put some pins in his hips. He just got out about half an hour ago, and the Dr.'s said for the first time today that they think he'll make it. But if he wasn't so young (only 25) and athletic, he wouldn't have had even a chance of making it. Although I'm sure for the next few months, he'll probably be wishing he were dead. Even now the drugs they have him on right now aren't enough, he's in a *lot* of pain. But he's been awake a few times, and the cat scan looked good so far, although apparently anything can happen in the first 24 hours, so brain damage can't be ruled out yet (and with two collapsed lungs, you have to wonder how much oxygen was getting in...).

I just... feel so helpless right now. Please people on my flist, drive carefully. And be extra careful when talking on your cell phone.

Update: They're pretty sure that he's going to live, but I've also discovered that he broke his back somewhere, no one has said anything about paralysis yet.

Pre-Meta Post, and a call to my Canadian Flisters!

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY xdigital_kittyx! I hope you've had a great day! :D

In other news, I think it rained blueberries when I wasn't looking. Seriously.
When I left work today there were blueish/purple spots all over the ground and on people's cars. And some of them had what looked like the skin bit of the berry. I have no idea WTF happened :-/

In other, other news, I've been talking a lot lately with paradise_city. We seem to spend a lot of time having... "deep" meta conversations (so what if some of them involve how hot Colby is...).
One of the things that we were talking about was some of the wank that has gone on in fandom, like the race wank from earlier this year, or the more recent thing about yuletide being anti-semitic, and how a lot of this could be avoided if people took the time to explain what bothers them in fandom to other people. My most common complaint is how fandom represents Canadians (which is funny, since they don't much :P). In the interest of not being all talk and no walk, I've been thinking about making a post about it. Post about what it means to me to be Canadian, and how we're unique. Talk about how I see Canadians represented in fandom, and fanfic, and how people get us right/wrong.

Saying all that though, I mostly just whine about it because it's something I can relate to and not because I have rage issues against fandom associated with it, so in the interest of not being boring, I'd like to ask the people on my flist for help.

So, what kind of representations of Canadians have you seen that strike you as off, or make you angry or roll your eyes? And particular trends, stereotypes?

Hell, even if you're not Canadian, feel free to add your input. Things that you used to think, but now know to be untrue (what do you know, it's *not* always winter up here), or things you still think to be true (and they might be!)
If you have any questions about Canada that you've wanted answered but didn't know how to ask, fire away. I promise not to be offended!

I think it'd be especially interesting to hear from people who are in the due South fandom, since that show was stereotypes personified.

I'll start off by screening comments, in case anyone is shy but will probably unscreen them as I go, depending on the content.