Car Accident & Not Buying the Farm Today

My friend Karen texted last night that she is okay but she had been in a car accident in the afternoon. A driver had not stopped at a stop sign, thus plowing into Karen’s rear driver-side door.

Her accident reminded me of one I was in with my son years ago. This is the newspaper column I wrote about the event.

Hold a good thought for Karen today, okay?  She texted this morning, rather poetically, “I feel like I’ve been dragged through a knothole.”

…

10/29/1999

It was late last Friday afternoon and son and I were driving south on Memorial towards a birthday party he needed to be at in a few minutes. I noticed an old beater car careening down 11th street at a very high speed. I realized that it was going to arrive at the upcoming intersection the same moment as me.

Luckily, I lived in Chicago so long I don't expect other drivers to be sane. When I saw that car blitzkrieging down the side street, I did what any overzealous former Chicago driver would do. I checked my blind spot, then swerved to the right.  Maybe the beater would slam on its brakes at the intersection, but I was going to try to get out of there ... just in case.

This instinct is probably why, later, my son told the police officer, "If I had to be in an accident, I'm glad it was with my mom." The beater never stopped. It tried to turn north onto Memorial while going 70 mph. The huge arc required for the turn slammed it into the back of my car.

Everything goes into hyper-timelessness while you are having a car accident. The din of crunching metal surrounds you. You feel the impact of your body jerking, the moment vibrates all the way into your blood and comes back out the tuning fork of your spine.

The thud was still reverberating when I heard the screeching sound of the beater as it jerked away to speed north in the exit style known as "Hit and Run". If you know anything about a full-size copper brown sedan with a recently smashed in left front - could you call the police, please?

Son and I simultaneously mumbled "Are you okay?" and then "Yeah, are you?" He found his glasses first. The impact had knocked them off his face and into the side window so hard the frame was bent.

He bent the frames back and put them on.  I began to realize, not knowing quite how this came to be, that we were crosswise in the intersection.  The impact had spun our car 180 degrees.               

I couldn't find my glasses. Son looked around, "Oh, here they are." He calmly fished them out from the crack between the console and my seat.

I started to back the car out of the intersection. I wondered why it felt as though I were hitting the curb. I climbed out to look. The rear right tire was no longer upright, it had been knocked so hard it resembled a falling over Ferris Wheel. The curb sensation was the edge of the tire bumping the body of the car.

That was the moment I began to understand that if I hadn't veered, the incredible impact of the accident would have slammed into the driver's door and then into me.

…

My son rushes in the door after school, eats three brownies in one gulp, and then gives me a grin and a hug. Because we almost bought the farm together, we remember how much we like each other.