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Monday, February 11, 2008

Close call

Mom had a little get together to celebrate Becky's birthday yesterday. There was a wind advisory posted but it wasn't too bad when we set out. However, as we were tooling down route 29 right in front of the farm where I used to work (and where my little pick-up truck was once run over by a tractor trailer) a car suddenly screeched out of his lane and came hurtling down the highway right towards us.

180....Fishtail....360....looming larger by the second....I pulled over against the guardrails and watched him come. No where to go to get out of his way on the busy highway. Nothing to do but watch in horror as he flew towards us, out of control.

Then he spun one last time and nosed into the guardrails right in front of us.....now facing the same way we were.


All I could do was tell my phone-bearing offspring, "Call 911".

Liz did so and reached an operator who had a terrible time understanding where we were. It was hard to convince her that aid was needed in Johnstown, not at the home farm. The man who had nearly met us head on got out of his car and went over to the car that had evidently rear-ended him (we didn't see that part of it) calling on his own phone. I don't think anyone was hurt, but we could not stay on the side of the road where we had stopped even if we had been equipped to offer assistance. Traffic was simply insane. No one even slowed down, just sailed between the damaged cars at sixty or more. I needed to move my car so they would see what had happened and slow down. So we proceeded to Grandma's house.


It was hard to settle down and eat birthday cake. To see such a wreck at almost the exact spot where a tractor trailer once ran over the cargo section of the truck I was driving set my heart a-pounding for a long time afterwards. Then we had to drive home in a near white-out as the promised wind showed up with a vengeance (we were lucky and got behind a plow truck that was winging shoulders and spreading salt).

BTW, this is one person you will NEVER see in a moving vehicle without a seat belt. In that long ago accident, every single thing in the cab of the truck with me went flying off down the highway through my broken windshield. I never did find my hairbrush. There was nothing left in that cab when my poor little Chevy came to rest....Except me. I got off with a cut on my head and lost a few hunks of hair.
Which grew back.

There are no accident reports to be found on the net or in the local papers so I guess yesterday goes down as just another weather-related minor accident. It scared the heck out of me though.

8 comments:

Stacy said...

Geez! Glad you are all okay. I had my own hair-raising driving experience yesterday, but no close calls like that.

Charley "Apple" Grabowski said...

I'm glad you weren't hit! I haven't checked the news reports from your area yet today but everything here in Oswego Co is closed because of the poor conditions. I am always shocked when there is an accident due to bad roads and yet the traffic doesn't seem to slow down.

Rebecca Mecomber said...

Scary. Glad you are OK.

We left for church Sunday morning under sunny skies. We'd watched the weatherman closely, and he said we in southern Oneida County wouldn't get ANY snow-- just the north part (Rome area). When we stepped out the doors after church, visibility was about 20 feet. Wow, was the weatherman wrong this time. I assume the bad weather was unexpected on your part, too?

Jeffro said...

Wow - that would make anyone's heart get to pumping. Glad you and yours were safe.

R.Powers said...

Whoa!
That was too close.
I don't drive without a seatbelt around me either.

Congrats on 50,000!

Linda said...

Whew..............that's all I can say!

Anonymous said...

wow, you are soo lucky, things really could have been worse! Glad that you are alright!

threecollie said...

Stacy, I read about your trip...glad you made it okay!

Apple, thanks, I think about you bus driving folks...what a challenging job you have!

Mrs. M. I probably reacted more than some might. It was almost exactly where I had that terrifying accident before.

Jeffro, thanks, I am getting to hate winter driving and we are getting a lot of it this year.

FC, even the kids are so in the habit that no one even thinks about not buckling up. We have to keep after the boss though.

Linda, that says it well!

Mon@rch, we were very, very lucky and I am very grateful.