I almost died last night.
I almost died last night.
Michelle and I spent the weekend in SLC with her family. Wonderful time, I got to be a grampa for the first time, more about that later. As we were driving through Ft Collins, it was only 9:00 PM, so we decided to call Pat & Marie to see if they were up for a visit: I hadnt seen their family for a long time. We had an enjoyable visit, sat in the hottub, and discussed what budding healer might do to get out of the business of climbing ladders. We left, and driving down Timberline north of Fort Collins High School, a silver mine sub delivery dude ran a stop sign in front of us. We broadsided him, and the inertia of his car dragged our car (sideways) completely out of the intersection, about two car lengths into the neighborhood street. I was in the passennger seat, and unbuckled. Both airbags deployed, I hit the windshield and the carabiner LED light I had hung from the visor a few hours before (“dope scope”, I said). We’re ok, except for a few minor injuries. I have a rather bruised forehead, a broken index-finger toe on my right foot (that Pat’s dogs keep stepping on), Michelle has something going on with her knee/ankle that she used to stand on the brake pedal. The car has a nice spider web pattern on the windshield where my head hit it. we were going about 35 when we saw the dude 50 yards ahead of us. Basically, the air bag saved my life. It was close enough that if Michelle hadn’t slowed down as much as she had, we’d have been the ones to receive the broadside, and michelle would have been in my lap. The other driver, a college-age kid that reminded Michelle of her son Dalton, had some bleeding near his right ear, shaken, but otherwise alright. We were close to Pat’s house, so we called him first, while we were still sitting in the car watching the air bags deflate. He came over and helped us - we offloaded all our stuff into his car, since I wasn’t sure I would ever see my car again. Once all the paperwork was filled out (including my witness account, in almost unintelligible henscratch), we went back to Pat’s. Pat and Michelle kept stopping me from trying to heal Michelle, saying that I was to be taken care of, that I was not going to be taking care of anyone. Michelle and I compromised, so I only do things that are short touches, no long energy movements. I can’t, won’t, sit there and watch her be in pain when I know that I can do something about it. Back at Pat’s house, as I was trying to fall asleep, I kept going over what happened. When I was reviewing it, it was like it all happened to someone else, and I was just watching it. I screamed as we crashed. I maintained consciousness through the whole thing.. first thing I did was find some napkins in the glovebox to stop the bleeding.. the car stayed running until one of the emergency folks told us to turn it off. Some other EMT types went and disconnected the battery, and told Michelle to put out her cigarette, in case there was some gasoline leaking or soemthing. I was intrigued, in reflection, about all the things that people were taking care of, while I was dazed. I used to work for a company that makes airbags, and I have mixed feelings about passenger airbags. I now owe my life to one, because I wasn’t buckled up, and the crash would have either killed me or sent me to the hospital otherwise. I’m glad I have another car waiting in the wings.