I was parked and feel asleep and woke up to a police officer getting me out of my car so that the fire department could assess what had happened. They turned off my car.. It was smoking so bad they thought it caught fire. Luckily it had not, but I blew a hose and ran my coolant and reserve reservoir all the way out. I was able to start my car and drive it to the gas station less than a mile away, blowing massive amounts of white smoke from my exhaust while listening to a horrible sounding engine the whole way there. I had to jump start it before it would start again.. But I had it towed to my house and it has sat there ever since. It was the middle of winter and My boyfriend thinks I cracked my head.. I'm hoping it's just a head gasket. Any advice or tips?

 

You could have easily destroyed the engine. Just imagine - the coolant leaked out from maybe a broken radiator, then the engine overheated - more than normal. A typical overheating job is a radiator and a cylinder head. ($2500- $4000) But, there have been times when the engine has gotten so hot - the pistons or rod bearings were damaged. Sometimes the only way to determine the extent of the damage is head removal. That's at least many hours of labor. At that point you can determine if it's a head gasket - but you don't know the extent of the damage to the pistons rings or bottom end (rod and main bearings) - piston rings are spring steel and when you overheat springs - they're not springy anymore -so possibly low/no compression or no oil control, possible crankshaft damage due to overheated oil. That is found out AFTER you put the head back on and have Spent $$$$$.

If you had to jump start the car - if the engine gets hot enough the pistons expand to be larger than the cylinders - that's hard to do with an aluminum block - but possible. That's really bad, there would have been no oil (no space) between the pistons and the cylinder walls.
Sorry for your troubles.