I walked away from an overturned car wreck today without a scratch.
It overturned because it went into a ditch.
It went into the ditch because I spun across the freeway.
I spun across the freeway because I tried to avoid being run off the other side of the road.
No other cars hit me. I was running errands alone. I was able to self-extract out the SUV trunk. A passing ambulance stopped to help. All in all, I got extremely lucky.
My wife, mrs.gnu, has kindly reminded me that I also survived cancer so please stop, and I am not a cat.
We have to buy a new car seat for our son. He was at home with mrs.gnu, but the (undamaged) seat isn’t supposed to be reused after being in a wreck. The trick will be fitting us all into our surviving Fiat 500.
Maybe 15 years ago I was on the 405 near Fountain Valley. I heard a screech and saw a car maybe 3 cars ahead of us in the fast lane skid across all four lanes to the shoulder. There was definitely traffic, moving but not bumper-to-bumper, and everybody avoided everybody else. It was amazing to be a part of that. It happened so quickly and with no bad results, I was actually not as shaky as I think I should have been.
Now I’m dealing the figurative headaches like retrieving my car and calling insurance. One more thing that was lucky - the driver that merged into my lane that caused it stopped and gave their info to highway patrol. Not so lucky - the policy number came back as canceled.
I walked away from a bad wreck (18-wheeler never saw stop light, t-boned my late Toyota Yaris at 40 mph). I view every day since then as Bonus Time. (How dare my wife want me to clean the bathroom? This is Bonus Time; I should be riding manatees while toasting St. Somebody with a travel mug of Single-Malt.)
Enjoy your Bonus Time, Gary!
OMG! The ball joint failed on my car (that was still under warranty). It stopped as abruptly as though it had hit a wall, and I developed SEVERE whiplash. I had no idea something like this could hurt so fucking much. On the second day, it hurt so bad, if someone had told me it would hurt like that for the rest of my life, I would have killed myself-- not hyperbole. I will never make fun of “mere” soft tissue injuries again.
After three months, flexaril, lidocaine patches, tramadol, naprosen, and PT, I am no longer in any pain I have a right to complain about, but still only back to about 90% range of motion.
Please, Garygnu, get checked out. It’s probably true that a soft tissue injury can’t be detected until you have symptoms, but don’t dismiss anything. For 24 hours, I just thought I’d slept weird, and that’s why my neck was sore. It wasn’t until I was beyond any pain I’d ever known that it dawned on me this was whiplash.
I’ve have prolonged labor, forceps; migraine headaches; an untreated broken ankle (long story); and an adult tonsillectomy. Nothing fucking hurt like the whiplash injury. It’s my new #10 on the pain scale.
Really don’t know what else to say in a case like that.