Yes, that’s right, Vanyel was in an accident yesterday. I’m not (seriously) hurt, and neither is anyone one else, since I was the only one involved. All I’ve got are a few bruises, and a case of nerves. Here’s how it happened:
I was driving to work yesterday morning (well, 10:30 is still in the morning), and was cruising along in the left lane of I-71. It was snowing, and the wind was blowing the snow around so it was hard to see very far ahead. All of a sudden, a truck appeared in front of me going much slower than I was (~65mph), so I hit the brakes and tried to swerve around it. I started to slide, and ended up doing a complete 360° spin! Remember, I was in the left lane when this started. So I slid across 4 lanes while spinning around, and slammed into the concrete barrier in the right side of the freeway with the rear of the van (a '91 Toyota Previa, in case you were wondering). I think I might have blanked out a few seconds, because the next thing I knew, I was sitting still, with the van facing forwards; my glasses were gone, my seatbelt was off, and I was a bit dazed. I believe the seatbelt must have released, because I was certainly wearing it at the crash, or else I took it off and don’t remember. Anyways, I managed to get the cell phone out of the glove compartment, and tried to call 911. “NO SIGNAL”. So I tried again, and it eventually got through. I explained what had happenned, and they connected me to the Cleveland PD, but I was cut off while talking ot the PD. “CALL FAILED”. Great. Eventually, a very nice man pulled over (note: thank you very very very much, whoever you were!) and helped me get the van all the way off the road. He was going to give me a ride to the nearest payphone, but just then the police showed up. They wanted me to drive to the next exit so they could get some information from me, but I didn’t have my glasses, so I couldn’t see! One of them looked in the van, and said “Well, here they are!”, like he was thinking “why didn’t you just pick them up? (because I couldn’t see my glasses without wearing my glasses!)”. They took down my information there, though, and I didn’t get cited. I went on to work, and went to my grandma’s after work, since she lives close by, and my dad was coming down. We left it there overnight, and are going to see if we can get a temporary fix today to drive it back home.
The van is driveable, but I wouldn’t want to drive it across town. The back bumper is hanging by a few bits, and the muffler is almost falling off. The back door is bent upwards some, so it doesn’t close all the way. The lights all work, so that’s good. It doesn’t accelerate very smoothly, and it’s a lot louder (well, the muffler is mostly gone, so that’s not a huge surprise.) Still, I’m OK, and we’ll just have to see what happens with whether it can be repaired. I was just lucky there was no traffic coming, since I slid across 4 lanes!
Glad you’re okay.