Cortlandville Town Court
3577 Terrace Road
Cortland
NY 13045
Aug. 23, 2013.
Dear Honorable Judge,
I regret that I could not appear in person to answer to the charge against me at 8:50 PM on Aug. 15, 2013 (3C23237GWM). I suffered severe personal and emotional trauma after the accident and was unfit to travel to the Court on Aug. 26, 2013. I have chosen to submit my plea of Not Guilty in writing.
First, let me give a detailed account of the event unfolded at the evening of Aug. 15, 2013.
• Around 8:30 PM, Aug. 15, 2013, I was driving on Hwy 81, heading toward New York City. My husband was sitting on the front passenger seat, while my daughter, Angela, was sitting in her car seat on the left and rear passenger seat.
• In that section of Hwy 81, the road was a divided highway, separated by guard rails. The road has two lanes, a right lane and a left passing lane.
• I had been following a tractor trailer truck on the right lane. The truck was driving slowly so I decided to pull out to the passing lane to pass.
• As I was driving alongside the truck, I noticed that the truck was beginning to move over to the left lane. I was forced to move left to stay away from the truck.
• Seconds later the truck had completely moved over to the passing lane and had forced my car onto the shoulder.
• The road began to take a slight curve to the right and the shoulder also narrowed. The truck pressed against my car on the front passenger side panel (See Picture 1). Then the trailer section of the truck hit the right real side of my car, causing my car to hit the guard rail 3 to 4 times before it came to a stop.
• The rear right side of my car suffered the most severe damage (see Pictures 2 & 3). It was as if the whole rear section was chopped off (see Picture 4). We were lucky to be alive because of the guard rail and the fact that there were no cars behind us.
• About a few minutes after the accident, a few cars passed by the scene of the accident. Some decided to stop to help. Someone called 911 and soon the police arrived. My daughter complained of neck pain, so the police encouraged me to go with her to the hospital as soon as possible. The three of us left with the Ambulance very quickly and was not able to participate in the police investigation at the scene. I also began to feel pain developing in the abdomen area.
• We arrived at the Cortland Regional Medical Center (134 Homer Ave, Cartland , NY 13045) at around 9:20 PM. When the hospital staff was attending to my daughter, my abdomen pain was getting more and more severe. I went to the washroom and was shocked that I had been bleeding. I immediately noticed hospital staff. After a series of tests, the doctor told me that they did not detect any heart beat from the fetus. I was totally shocked because I just had a medical check-up with my family doctor and was told that the fetus was growing and was healthy. I pleaded with them to try again but the result turned out to be the same.
• The police arrived at the hospital after 11 PM, telling me that my car had been towed away and gave me a traffic ticket. Stricken with sorrow of losing my baby, I was overwhelmed by the news. I was forced off the road and hit by the truck and was now accused as the culprit. Shocked and grieved, I left the hospital, not accepting that the baby had died.
• I took the bus with my husband and daughter and headed to New York City. I was bleeding heavily along the way. When the bus arrived at the Bus Terminal, I had lost consciousness and was later brought to the Hospital by police.
• They perform an operation on me, aborting the fetus (see Picture 5).
• However, the bleeding continued, though more mildly than before.
• I was scheduled to fly back to Canada on Aug. 19, but fainted at the counter due to heavy blood loss.
• I was brought to the Hospital emergency department, rested for a few hours and released later that day.
• I successfully board the plane to Canada on Aug 20 and was transferred to North York Generally Hospital (NYGH) immediately upon my arrival.
• Ultrasound images showed that the abortion procedure done on Aug 16 failed to clean up the uterus, leaving behind some tissues, causing non-stop bleeding.
• I was operated at late Aug. 21 and was released from NYGH on Aug 22. After the operation at NYGH, the bleeding has finally stopped.
• After suffering the impacts of the accident and the emotional trauma of losing my unborn child, I suffered a prolong period of blood loss and two operations. I was simply too weak to travel to the court to answer the charge against me.
The charge “failure to use designated lane” perhaps refers to the fact that I had been driving on the shoulder. I was forced to the shoulder because the Tractor trailer truck began to move to my lane. Trying to save myself and my family from the truck, I instinctively moved to the left and onto the shoulder. I had no choice. I believed the truck driver somehow failed to notice that I had been driving on the passing lane. By the time he felt me, in hitting the front passenger side, he tried to pull away quickly, causing his trailer to hit the rear section of my car
I have diagramed the sequence of the events in Picture 6.
The police told me at the Cortland Regional Medical Centre that there were a few “witnesses” giving support to the present charge against me. But the fact of the matter is, there were really no “eye-witnesses” of the accident at all. There were no cars behind us at the time of the accident. Otherwise we would have been hit by them. By the time the first witness arrived a few minutes later, the events of the impact had already unfolded. They could only be witness to the aftermath of the accident, not to the accident itself.
Therefore, the only reliable “witness” to the accident is the damage sustained by my car. The light damage on the left front passenger side panel and the severe damage at the rear end were consistent with the series of events presented here.
I urge, you, Your Honor, to carefully consider the account presented here and declare my innocence.
Yours Sincerely,
Picture 1: Showing front right side damage
Picture 2: Showing Right side front and rear damage
Picture 3: Showing severe Right side Rear end damage
Picture 4: Showing rear end being chopped off
Picture 5: My Baby
Picture 6: The sequences of the Event
是不是楼主想从超车道回到主道，而没有留出足够的安全距离，导致后面的大卡车没有空间了，所以大卡车紧急刹车，
