As if Saturday's shake up was not enough, fate decided to pay our family another visit. On my way to work Monday morning I encountered black ice on the road. The first patch I navigated successfully through, and I was going fairly slow when I hit the second patch.
I was terrified as I made the decision to head more to the center of the road instead of the right side where there was an extreme drop off down into Cherry Valley and no guard rail. I thought I may be able to right myself again and slowly make my way to work. I saw that I wasn't going to get out of this. So I put my foot on the brake, braced my other foot and gripped the steering wheel. Then I said "Oh, Dusty this isn't going to be good".
I slammed into the hill on the left side of the road immediately after that.
The ride wasn't over YET as the car rolled over onto it's top and spun around. After I hit the embankment and the car started to roll over, I don't know what I thought - my survival instincts must have kicked in. When everything stopped moving I found myself hanging upside down with the seat belt holding me in place.
Frantically I tried to figure out which side of my body the seat belt latch was. I was upside down and couldn't find anything. When I found the seat belt latch, I braced myself with my hand on the roof and my knees under the steering wheel to keep from falling on my head. I released the seat belt and still bumped my head, but not too bad.
Next thing to do was to get out of the car. I couldn't believe it, but the car was still running! I turned the key off, but couldn't figure out why the keys wouldn't come out of the ignition so I left them there. I got to the door and tried to open it. It wouldn't open. I looked to the back of the car and then a flash of memory helped me understand that the doors were still locked. The car was still in gear.
I had pounded on the glass when I saw 2 men standing outside of the car, kind of watching and wondering what they should do. I mouthed, "I can't get out", but before they moved an inch I unlocked the door and was so relieved when it opened freeing me from the trap.
The bystanders were stunned! They didn't expect me to come crawling out of that wreck unscathed. But sure enough, I was just shaken and not seriously injured. I had some sore muscles the next day for sure. I got out of the car and looked back inside of it very much wanting to find my purse only to remember that I'd left my cell phone at home that morning. I did eventually find my purse - it was on the other side of the car looking like someone had picked it up and put it down in the road for me. It had been open on the passenger seat and every time it has tipped over everything always falls out of it. This time though, everything was still tucked inside. It was amazing.
This was not the end of the ordeal by any means. Now the Fire truck, EM Ts and police needed to be called in. A sweet bystander let me use his telephone to call my husband. I told him "I'm OK sweetheart, but I've been in an accident and the car rolled". He was on his way with the kids. I knew Audrey would freak out when she saw the car and she did. I assured her when they got there that mommy was OK. Mommy was so OK she was strict and grouchy and bossy and then sorry and hugging her. Audrey did feel much better after all of that because she could see that her mommy was indeed OK!
The accident happened at about 8:10 in the morning, and we got all done and finally home by 10:30. Let me tell you - accidents take a long time.
When the King County Sheriff finally arrived he was very upset/excited. He saw the kids in Dusty's car and thought they had been with me in the accident. They weren't thank goodness! When I let the sheriff know it was only me, he got very stern and told me he was going to give me a citation for driving too fast. I had a confused quizzical look on my face, because I knew I hadn't been driving very fast at all! It turned out that after the sheriff tried to move his car up the road and couldn't get any traction he decided not to give me a citation. Oh thank heavens! I heard the firemen and the Duvall police talking about the call they just made to the sanding trucks to get out to Cherry Valley road because of the ice danger. People were very surprised - they didn't know who the "victim" was simply because I was standing there and looked as O.K. as any of the witnesses.
I was cleared by the EM Ts, the Sheriff declared it a no-fault incident, and the tow truck arrived to clean up the mess. I called my boss, and called my co-worker to get the news out that I wouldn't be coming to work that day. Then I spend the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday hugging my kids and my husband and thanking my lucky stars to be walking around and OK.
I only hope we can get another car for me to drive to work. Dusty is working on fixing his truck so I can use that until we find out what the insurance company says.
I was back to work today, and when someone asked "How are you?", I said "I'm so happy to be here" and I meant it.
No comments:
Post a Comment