FACE DOWN ON THE CENTER LINE

One of my favorite bloggers, Grayquill, recently ran an amusing three part post about his 17 automobile accidents. Yep, 17. Now I can't come close to that but I have possibly out done him in the damage department with one really good (or perhaps I should say, bad) one.

I had not been out of school very long . One of my former classmates was getting married in Georgia and had asked me and a mutual friend to be bridesmaids. Now I had a car but it was a $50.00 car and just got me to work and back under protest. Wilma had no car so we weren't sure we could go. Flying was out of the budget.

I was discussing my problem at coffee break one day when one of my co-workers out of the blue, offered her relatively new, really cute, green VW bug to drive. I was stunned at her generosity and very grateful but a bit nervous. I really didn't know the girl very well. Had situations been reversed, I am pretty sure I would not have done the same thing.

"Do you have insurance," I asked and Liz said ,"Of course."

In my youth, thinking that was all I needed to know, I gratefully traded cars with her. The wedding was on a Sunday so Wilma and I left after I got off work on Friday night. Since I had borrowed the car, I felt obligated to drive and Wilma was the navigator.

I had no idea how long it would take to drive to Atlanta from Sarasota but we were still on the road way after midnight. Yes I was tired and sleepy but I didn't trust Wilma to drive a car I was responsible for since I did not know her driving abilities. Should have re-thought for any driver is better than a sleepy one.

Some where around Valdosta Ga is when my eyes slammed shut for the umpteenth time. I vaguely remember coming up fast on a car, seeing no oncoming car, and pulling around to pass. I had the little bug doing really close to 70. If you know VW bugs, they pretty much get airborne at that speed.

In my groggy state, I slid off the left hand side of the road, over corrected which threw me into the other car. Wilma later said all she saw were wild eyes staring back at us as we barely grazed their left side. With the lack of weight in the front of the car (to me, a design flaw), we rocked crazily back and forth, totally out of control. The other car shot ahead of us and was never seen again. I had the whole road to rock around in.

"Here we go." I said flatly as I eventually knew I had lost the battle for control and we started our first roll to the left. It got really black and I remember nothing of the wreck. Wilma said when she got her senses back, she looked around for me and saw me hugging the center line, face down and unconscious. She saw headlights coming and grabbed the first white thing she could find from our scattered suitcases which happened to be my bra which she waved frantically. Now I have never had show stopping boobs, but that night, my bra stopped a semi truck.

When I did come to, there were about 10 or 15 people milling about. Wilma was remarkably unscathed and I just kept saying, "Boy am I going to be sore tomorrow." This I repeated every time I moved. I remember being excited when the ambulance came and saying, "I always wanted to ride in an ambulance." However I didn't get to enjoy the ride for I lost consciousness again. Rats, missed the whole thing.

I woke up again in the ER on a gurney. I was cold, really really cold and the nurses and residents were laughing as they sang "It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas" which I thought a bit callous. That is not a happy song for me even today. They were referring to the busy ER as another ambulance announced its arrival. I croaked out that I wanted a blanket and they gave me one which did nothing to make me warm. "She is getting shocky." was the last I heard till morning.

In the morning, the Dr told me what all I had done. I had broken something in every quadrant of my body. I had fractured my skull, broken my nose, embedded road grit in my entire right side of my face, cracked two ribs, broke my tail bone, broke my leg, tore the cartilage in my knee and had three broken toes. Lots of skin was missing. Guess I had done a lot of flopping and skidding when I bailed out the VW. With the seat belts of today, I doubt I would have been hurt.

Wilma called her mother. She told her mom we had car trouble (not a complete lie for the car was "troubled") and could she come pick us up? When her Mom asked were we were, Wilma said "Stone Valley Hospital in Valdosta Ga." She then hung up quickly, afraid of what her mom would say. Again this was before cell phones. Her poor mom almost had half a dozen heart attacks on the way to pick us up. Oh yeah, we never made the wedding.

When I found out Wilma was fine, the worse news was that I had rolled my co-worker's BORROWED car several times and it was a total wreck. I was sick that I had so betrayed her trust. This was not just Liz's car, it was her first car, a graduation present and her baby. It turned out Liz did have insurance, but it was liability insurance only. Yikes. I ended up having the VW repaired at almost the cost of a new car. Somehow she wasn't interested in my $50.00 car as a trade off.

Huge lesson was learned. Today, I won't drive anyone else's car if I can help it. Pretty sure Liz, wherever she is today, will not lend her car to ANYONE. Primarily though, I will never drive anywhere if I am the least bit sleepy. A sleepy driver is just as impaired as a drunk driver. It is just that our breath smells better.

Probably should have posted this before Thanksgiving as a friendly reminder but please be safe over these next holidays in December when everyone is distracted. If you are sleepy, get out from behind that wheel and put your head somewhere soft or your sleep may be a LOOONG one.