It's about time I write this out. I've started having nightmares about it again.
The phone rings so I pick it up. It’s Robin and she can’t get the truck to start.
“I’ll be right there.” I say as I grab some tools and head out the door.
It was acting stupid for a while and I had started to think she just wasn’t pressing the clutch all the way to the floor. I hadn’t been able to get it to act up. I walked out the door with the house phone in my hands, put the tools in the truck and laughed at the fact I still had the house phone in my hands. Instead of walking it back into the apartment I just took it with.
It was overcast and a little rainy. The roads were a little slick, so I took it easy. I had to go downtown to get Robin and I knew it was the battery. I figured we would yank it out and go down to Auto Zone to get another. Little did I know my night would turn out like it did.
I was heading north on Bardstown Road to go downtown. I had to get gas so I turned on my turn signal, did a head check and changed lanes. I slowed down because the light I was approaching was red. It changed to green so I gave it some gas to bring me back up to the speed limit. I was in the far right lane so I could turn into Thorton’s a little further down the road.
Right past the light is a little side street and then a Taco Bell that sits on the corner. He never saw me until it was too late. I slammed on the brakes and looked to the left. There was nowhere to go. I was boxed in and heading for the front end of a Volvo that misjudged and ended up with his whole front end in my lane.
I crammed down on the brakes and started to fishtail on the rain slick road. I suddenly realized the driver of the Volvo was tall. He had his arm on the window ledge, window was up, and I could see the top of his knee in the window. I realized that if I hit him in the driver’s side with my passenger side he might loose his arm and leg. I frantically turned the wheel into the skid to try and straighten myself back out. I wanted to hit him front end to front end. I was not going to be responsible for him losing an arm or leg or even his life. It worked. I straightened my 1000 pound, total weight with everything in the back, Ranger back out so that I would demolish my front passenger side headlight while hitting him in the front drivers side headlight.
My airbags deployed with a loud pop when we hit. I was still on the brakes and the wheels were smoking and squealing like a stuck pig. I saw something coming at my face and instinctively flinched back. I wear glasses and have since eighth grade. I always get plastic lenses, but there’s still a possibility that they will shatter and poke out your eye. I closed my eyes tight and turned my head towards the passenger side. I pushed myself back against the seat and that may be the only reason why I stayed on the brakes.
I came to a stop and couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t figure out why there was white powdery smoke in the cab and why it was so damn hot if I had the air on in the truck. I sat there gasping for air and trying to orient myself. I kept looking at the driver’s side mirror to get out. I rolled down the windows and turned up the fan to blow the powder out. It seemed like I sat there for hours before I had enough sense to put it in park. I finally just opened the door because the idiots were flying by me and I figured if they took off the door it wouldn’t hurt the truck much more than it already was.
I practically fell out of the truck. I looked back while I was gasping for air and saw that I had hit him so hard I turned him. The Volvo jumped the curb and the telephone pole stopped him.
I had enough sense to go get them out of the Volvo because it was giving a little bit of smoke from the engine. I kept gasping for air as I tried to ask them if they were okay. I finally got my question out and when we stopped, to smell the smoke, we realized the radiator had popped.
There was a lady in red nurse scrubs on her phone walking over to us. She asked if we needed an ambulance and the Volvo’s backseat passenger told her I couldn’t breath. She made us all sit down and I lifted my shirt to make sure I hadn’t ripped my nipple ring out with the seat belt. No one cared. The nurse lady asked if I was bleeding and looked at my nipple to make sure it was intact. It was.
The backseat passenger gave me her pop to drink to try and help me clear my mouth of the talcum powder. It helped tremendously.
The ambulance came and checked my lungs and my nipple. She took my vitals and information and we talked for a bit. She made sure I wasn’t sore anywhere and that I didn’t lose consciousness. I told her I didn’t think so and told her everything I remembered. She sat and patiently listened to me. She took my vitals again and put some triple antibiotic on my nipple, just in case I had upset the piercing with the crushing yank the seatbelt gave it.
I got out of the ambulance and signed my release papers. I asked the nurse lady if I could use her cell. I was thankful I had the house phone with me because I had the number Robin had called from. I called and got the guard desk. I told him to find Robin and tell her I was in an accident and would be there shortly.
The officer came and took our information. I moved my truck off the road and was amazed that it sat idling for forty-five minutes on E. I told the officer that I hadn’t laid into the kids in the Volvo for not wearing their seatbelts. The officer assured me he would do it for me. The officer handed me my license and insurance card and told me to go home. I told him I still had to go get Robin from downtown. He told me to just take it easy. I did.
When I got to Robin’s work she wasn’t there. The idiot security guard didn’t tell Robin I’d be there to get her. I drove home.
I was sore and had two slight black eyes. My nose hurt like hell. I went to the hospital and had x-rays taken. They never found the break. The surgeon that did my sinus surgery two years later asked me when I had broken my nose recently. I was furious.
I saw the nice nurse lady five weeks, or so, after the accident. We sat and talked while she was on lunch. She saw the entire accident. She told me that I actually had the passenger side of the truck off the ground and she thought I was going to end up on my driver’s side or the roof. I don’t remember the wheels hitting the ground. She also told me that when I hit the Volvo I popped the front end of the truck up and ran over his hood. I caught the rack and pinion on the side of the Volvo and that’s what separated us. She complemented me on my driving abilities. She was afraid she was going to have to tourniquet his arm or leg to save his life. I told her everything I remembered. We sat and talked about how far off the ground the passenger side had to have been. That truck has eighteen inches of play before the wheels come off the ground and then it would have been another two feet, or so, for me to run over his hood.
I thanked my lucky stars that no one was hurt that day. I always wear my seatbelt and always will. Those three kids were extremely lucky they weren’t hurt.
The saving grace, for them, was that it was an older Volvo made out of metal. I wish all cars were still made that way. My truck can do some real damage since it’s made out of metal and not that fiberglass crap everything’s now made from.
The heat in the truck was caused from the airbags deploying. When the sensor is punctured or crushed it takes the heat from the exhaust manifold and uses that to deploy the airbags. The exhaust manifold can exceed 500 degrees Fahrenheit in some vehicles and can actually cause second-degree burns. The white powder is talcum powder to make sure the bag doesn’t decay. It also makes the airbag take temperature changes so that the bag doesn’t stick together. If it did it wouldn’t deploy properly.
I did $3500 in damage to the truck that day. My truck has a dual suspension system on it, which means I have tie rods and a rack and pinion on it. I got a new rack, the frame straightened, a new battery since we took it out to use in the other truck, a new fender, the hood realigned, new front bumper, new headlight and turn signal assembly, both airbags reset and a partial paint job. The repair shop horrors are another story.
