Back in high school (1986-ish) I worked at the $1 Movie Theater. One Friday night after work, I was riding home with a co-worker in her Corolla. Her boyfriend was following us in his pick-up. It wasn’t raining but it was misty out. We were going about 55 mph when we got to a traffic light (this intersection was in the middle of nowhere–she lived in the boonies. Still have no idea why there was a light there!). As we approached the light it turned yellow. She didn’t think he would make the light so she slammed on brakes. He thought he wouldn’t make it so he stepped on the gas. He rear-ended us which sent us up the embankment and into the air. We flipped and landed on the roof, then skidded about 150 yards (still upside down). Luckily we were both wearing seat belts.
He immediately jumps out to check on us and another car goes to call an ambulance. She hit the steering so hard iwth her chin that it cracked it (the wheel and her chin). She also had a dislocated shoulder, a broken jaw, and various cuts and scratches. I had cuts and scrapes on my shoulder and waist from the seatbelt and a “squished gut” (the EMT joked), plus my head was bleeding from a pretty good cut on my head caused by her 75-tape cassette tape case (hey, I said it was the 80s!) flying up from the backseat and cracking me on the back of the head.
Two ambulances and a fire rescue crew came, cut us out of the car and had us on gurneys as they were checking us out. It started pouring rain so to protect us from the rain they covered us up with sheets, just about the time her mom pulled up. When her mom saw the sheets over us, she thought we were dead and fainted, cracking her head on the pavement, and requiring 10 stitches!
It was an odd sensation. Not really slow motion but I remember thinking, “this is going to hurt when we land!” And I remember thinking how odd it was that I had time to think about how I was going to get out of the car if it caught on fire.
It was scary as shit but we were relatively unharmed in the grand scheme of things.
One of my wife’s former employees was in a rollover on a very remote stretch of road between Tok, AK and the Canada border station. It was in the winter and he was driving a van. When it flipped, it landed on its roof in a deep snow drift, effectively blocking egress through any of the doors. He had no way to break the glass, so just sat there hoping that a) the car wouldn’t catch fire, and b) that somebody would find him before he starved to death or died of exposure.
Luckily, somebody happened to be driving that stretch and his headlights picked up the wheel marks going through the snow berm. The guy dug out the driver’s door and he was able to crawl out unharmed. It’s a great argument for carrying an escape tool in your car within arm’s reach.
First one I was in a Mk1 VW Rabbit cruising down a country dirt road on the way to “apply” at a farm for summer seasonal work. I had worked there the summer before so it was pretty much just a show and an sign on deal. As I bopping along to “Dude Looks Like a Lady”, I noticed that I had been correcting to the left but the car was continuing to move right. I think that is when I let off the gas and with it being a manual transmission, the front wheels found the traction they had been missing and shot me off across the road. I would have just spun into the ditch but it was a maintained road so the little berm built up by the road grater grabbed the front wheel and I barrel rolled down the ditch. That probably kept the roof from collapsing since I was rolling on the nose and the C pillar. It wasn’t in slow motion, it was in stop motion. I was upside down, right side up, left side down, upside down, right side down and settled onto the wheels with no motion in between as far I knew. I quickly turned off the car and scrambled out. After a minute to catch my breath and check for fire, I went back in and grabbed my glasses.
A couple minutes later a farmer and his wife came by and gave me a ride down to the farm I was going to work for later. I called my parents and waited. Shortly my future coworkers showed up asking if we had seen that accident down the road.
“That was me.”
“Oh.”
Dad showed up and we recovered the car and towed it back home. We later swapped that engine and transaxle into a 1st gen Sirocco that had a chucked a piston rod through the case.
The second one happened 5 years later and half way across the country. I was zipping down State Highway 167 in Auburn Washington approaching the State Highway 18. Both are freeways and it was around midnight so I was doing about 70 and swerved for a stupid reason. Before I straightened out, I let off the gas and being in 4th gear induced the rear wheels to pass the front wheels. When I got sideways, the tires gripped and I barrel rolled again. This one was also in stop motion and I remember putting my hands up to keep the roof from caving in and then realizing that wouldn’t have any effect and might break my arms, grabbed the steering wheel until I stopped moving, again wheels down. I turned off the ignition and tried the door. It was stuck a bit but gave way to my shoulder. I hopped out surprised the few witnesses who were expecting to see their first dead body.
This time the cops were called in and the car was towed away on a flatbed. I caught a ride with the tow truck and remember the guy telling me it was totaled. I agreed, saying that I figured any car that has been wheels up was dead just like a hamster.
In the first one I was not wearing a seatbelt. In the second one I was. Total injuries for both accidents was a bruise along my spine from the first accident where I slid from the driver’s bucket seat into the side bolster on the passenger’s bucket seat.
Lessons learned:
[ol][li]I no longer drive any FWD with a manual transmission and try to stay out of FWD with a automatic transmission. I’m wired to drive RWD or AWD only.[/li]
Always wear your seatbelts or you will get a nasty bruise.[/ol]
I was 6, and riding in the back seat of a Ford Bronco being driven by my stepdad. Mom was in the front passenger seat with my 2-year-old sister sitting on her lap. Stepdad hit a wet patch of road on a low bridge, slammed on his brakes, and hydroplaned.
From my 6-year-old perspective, I thought my stepdad (a total ass, by the way) was having fun with us by pretending to zig-zag the car back and forth wildly. We swerved hard left, hard right, hard left, hard right again, and then went over the side of the low bridge. I very clearly remember the rollover. It reminded me of being in the funhouse at the state fair, with the walls rotating around you. We spun for a couple of seconds, then we were upside down in a creek, and water was spilling in.
The next thing I remember was some good samaritans lending us a hand and helping us out of the vehicle. An ambulance showed up shortly and transported us to the hospital. My mom had whiplash. My stepdad (the ass, remember?) was the only one in the car wearing a seatbelt, as he “didn’t believe in seatbelts for kids” and was unhurt. My baby sister was miraculously unharmed. I felt okay but at the hospital discovered a giant quarter-sized gash in my left knee. I didn’t feel it, and in fact have never felt anything near that spot again, so I assume there was some minor nerve damage.
I think we were pretty lucky. (Also, Mom left that guy about 6 months later, thank og.)
My father hit a patch of ice and rolled three times. He didn’t remember it so much as “rolling” as being buffeted from all directions (including from above).
I never rolled but did do a couple of 360 spins. I didn’t feel like I was being twirled around, but I was acutely aware of the scenery spinning.
A bunch of years ago, I lost control on a patch of black ice, did a 180, and went into the roadside ditch bass ackwards. The car rotated on the driver’s door, and the roof over the passenger got a lot shorter in the process from hitting the bank of the ditch. Since I was driving, I was in a bubble and OK.
I did have 2 very minor injuries, but neither were directly attributable to the rollover. I came to rest upside down, hanging in my seatbelt, so when I popped the button, I fell about 4 inches headfirst. That left me with a goose egg on top. Since I was now free of my restraint, I was determined to get out, but couldn’t open either front door. I crawled into the back seat to open those doors, and acquired several slivers of glass in my left hand in the process.
The car was totaled; I was fine. I shook for several hours after the trooper took me home.
ETA: While it was happening, it was an “Oh, SHIT!!!” moment. All I could think of was a flashback to the previous summer when I dumped a friend’s motorcycle rather hard after hitting debris in the road. Walked away from that one, too.
Transporting a (mentally competent) patient without consent leaves the crew open to criminal charges of battery and false imprisonment. Honoring the refusal leaves them open to dereliction of duty.
Even worse is figuring out what to do with a head injury patient that’s refusing. Competent or not?
When I was an irresponsible 19 or 20, I got very drunk at a party. I was about 20 miles from home, and for some reason I felt I could not stay at the party for the night…I had to sleep at home. So I left, and fell asleep/passed out while doing about 50 m.p.h. on a country highway. I woke up as my car was leaving the road, headed for a deep ditch. The passenger side dipped low, and the car flipped onto it’s roof as I skidded upside down into a cornfield. I was not hurt at all, and I got out and drunkenly thought I could rock the car until it had enough momentum to flip back over. I could not, however, so I walked back to the road. I was planning to leave the scene, when the very first vehicle to pass my way was a tow truck, no shit!
I flagged him down, hooked his chains to the undercarriage of my car, he hit the gas, and my '81 Ford Escort was back on it’s wheels. I put it in first, floored it, and was out of the ditch, and back on the road. I drove that car the rest of the way home with the windshield smashed, and the roof caved in.
Kiddies, don’t drink and drive!