For those of you who follow either myself (@kelsbells) or my sister (@amyob) on twitter, you would know my sister was in an accident earlier this week. She was riding her scooter, a driver pulled out in front of her (without looking) which caused my sister to hit the side of the car and flip over the bonnet onto the road. Thankfully, she has come out of it with just a broken toe, broken leg, and cuts and bruises.

Unfortunately, my sister lives over an hour away, hence the hospital is over an hour away as well. While I would love to go in and catch up every day, the sheer location makes it a bit more difficult. As such, I can really only visit every couple of days, which is probably a godsend for Amy as it means her ears don’t cop a verbal bashing every day.

Social media has helped so much following Amy’s accident, it’s incredible. After Pauline made all the important phone calls directly after the accident, she would have had to make hundreds of calls and texts to let others know. Instead, a quick update on twitter (and later on Facebook by Amy herself), the word was out there. Family members based remotely were up to date, as were Amy’s extended friends. For me personally, I’m able to get up-to-date with what’s happening with Amy from her tweets. I don’t have to be at the hospital every second now to find out what time she goes in for surgery, how the surgery went etc. I can check the twitter feed from Amy or Pauline, and I have the information I need.

Of course, it doesn’t totally replace hospital visits. A caring sister still needs to visit and provide pointless presents and bad jokes, right?

When my physio asks me again to explain the need for twitter, I will be able to explain using this very situation. It’s times like this that I’m incredibly grateful for the advance in technology in this day and age.

In the meantime, get better soon sis!