Just call me Crash

Crash Hawkins.


That's a pretty strong name actually. It sounds like a football player, like a running back or linebacker. More a linebacker, as only a defensive player should be called something like Crash, Boz, DT.

Am I beating around the bush? Yeah. Pretty much. Here's why. I've never been in a car accident before, and this one was fairly traumatic for me. I'll get into why later. For now, be content that I'm writing about it at all, because this is one of those uncomfortable, vulnerable subjects that men (at least what I've been raised to believe are 'men') don't talk about . . . at all . . . with anyone. But here I am putting it up on the internet for everyone to read.

Why?

The whole point of this blog is to act as a journal, as a record of my thoughts and emotions as I travel through this journey known as life. I share a lot of joy here, but it is equally important to share pains here as well.

Share pain. There's something even deeper here, since I believe everyone who was in that vehicle that day will probably read this, and they'll have to re-live this as well. There's an old axiom that sharing a joy will make it multiply, and sharing a sorrow lessens the burden. We'll see how that goes.

So here we go.

Driving back from a meeting and lunch, we got rear-ended while making a left turn. The lady who hit us got out of the car, asked if we were ok, stated she was going to move her car out of the lane so cars could pass, and then she drove off. A couple of witnesses got her plate as she left though. All 4 of us in the car were a little shaken, and had some bumps and bruises, but no blood. I was driving, and it wasn't my car. The owner was in the passenger seat, and the car had been purchased all of 4 days before.

That's pretty much it, on the surface. You may be thinking, "All of that preamble for THAT??!!" Well, yeah. But here's where the trauma comes in.

I have been completely unable to replay the incident in my mind. I can't remember what I saw through the event. I CAN remember what I heard, and what I felt (a scream before the contact, the crunch-crash-and skid of the collision, and the spinning around), but I can't recall what my eyes were telling me through the event. I remember starting the turn, and then the vision I can recall was looking at the vehicle's owner (and feeling my heart sink into my shoes). Between these 2 visions, I don't remember seeing anything. Everything else is crystal clear. I remember HEARING someone in the back seat yelling (she saw the vehicle coming, I didn't), I remember clearly looking around in FRONT of the vehicle and thinking to myself, "There's plenty of room to make this turn, why is she yelling? I'll slow down for her if that makes her feel better, but the next car coming is waaaay down the road".

I remember thinking that to myself, but I can't for the life of me remember what I saw, what the road looked like, what the on-coming car looked like, or how far it actually was down the road. Then I remember hearing and feeling the collision, and I vividly recall thinking, "My wheels are turned into oncoming traffic" and having to make a split second decision to gun it or jerk the wheel around into a spin, or BOTH. Since I had never driven the vehicle before, I didn't know how far I could push it without flipping, so I didn't gun it AND turn. I didn't want to gun it INTO on coming traffic. So I decided to just turn the wheel hard to the left hoping that the force would at best spin us in place, and at worse spin us into the other lane going WITH the flow.

Then I remember my head smacking on something (I can't recall on what), but I remember thinking to myself, "keep cool, keep calm, use your wits and keep your eyes open". How odd that I can remember telling myself to keep my eyes open, and I REMEMBER that I kept my eyes open, but I can't remember what my eyes were telling me until about 5 seconds later. That's really disturbing, and it is what has bothered me the second most ever since (the biggest bother being that I was driving when someone else's new car got crunched and I might have been able to avoid it, if I had only adjusted the mirrors, but I didn't want to mess with her settings).

Then the vehicle came to a stop, and I remember thinking, ok, my head hurts, but everything else seems to work. I checked on the passengers (bumps and bruises, but no blood or broken bones, one broken heart {mine} , but no broken bones). And now I can remember everything that I saw from here on out. The other driver, the witnesses, the police, the firetruck, the ambulance, trying to call my wife (had to leave a voicemail), everything. No problem. I checked to see if any fluids were leaking, which would have meant I had to shut down the engine and the A/C, which would have sucked, because it was hot.

There. I've said it. I've got it all out there. I can't remember what I saw throughout the most critical parts of the collision, despite being able to recall what I thought, what I heard, and what I felt. And that bugs the crap out of me. Not as much as crashing someone else's car bugs me, but it bugs me none-the-less. It bugs me so much that I drive differently now. I used to have a feeling of invulnerability before. That I could spot trouble coming from miles away, and be able to avoid it (which I've actually done hundreds of times before, and possibly could have done here, if only I'd adjusted the mirrors).

Now I drive more conservatively, especially with my kids in the car, and especially whenever I make a left turn. I don't really enjoy driving anymore (which made the trip to Vegas a bit less inspiring). I don't care to drive as much anymore. My wife finds herself in the driver's seat when we're both in the car much more often now, and she does it without any sort of comments from the peanut gallery (I USED to give her a little guff, or at least make faces or grab the Jesus bar). She's actually pretty pleased about this turn of events. She's not pleased that I was in an accident of course, but she enjoys driving with me a little more now.

I'm not really sure how to end this entry. Usually there's a lesson learned or an uplifting saying that I relate the message to. But I don't really feel any better now that I've put it all to print, and I still can't recall what my eyes were seeing through the event. I'm still occationally tormented by the sounds of the yell and the collision, and look in the owners eyes afterwards.

I guess the lesson here is that sometimes you just have to take what life gives you. It could have been much, much worse. Someone could have been much more seriously injured. I COULD have been pushed into oncoming traffic I suppose. We could have flipped and rolled over once or twice, that would have hurt. Blah. Now I'm just trying to make myself feel better (and not very successfully).

What's done is done. Accept it, embrace it, make it part of you, and move along. It's about time I move along actually, this entry has taken me almost 2 hours to write. So tune in next time when I tell all about our Vegas trip, a trip that didn't involve a single crash.