I figured I'd blog about something other than the class work...
So this weekend, I was headed to Orlando for a rugby game against UCF. I had left on Friday and about an hour into the drive, my friend and I ran into some rain and wind. I slowed down, a little. A gust took my car into a small puddle and I lost hydroplaned. My car took a hard left and slid perpendicular with traffic. We had turned 180 degree by the time we hit the median and continued to spin for another 180 before finally stopping a foot shy of the opposite side. My door literally opened into the rumble strip of the oncoming traffic. You could imagine I was a little freaked out. I stepped out of my car and did a spot check for any damage. I got back in the car, made sure my passengers were okay, and then went down the road. My car started to shake and my tire pressure light came on once I hit 55mph. Of course I'm thinking to myself What now? as I pulled over to the shoulder. So I checked my tire pressures and changed the one that was the lowest. Then I found the nearest walmart in hopes that they would see my car. When I pulled up, they were about to close, but I explained my situation and the agreed to help me out. They balanced out my pressures and tightened the lugs my wheels. Seeing nothing wrong with the suspension or frame, they sent me on my way. Thankfully, I made it home safe and the car ran flawlessly.
While all of this was happening, I just felt like this was the worst possible situation. Looking back though, I was extremely lucky. There were no cars near me. And if I had lost control 100 yards earlier, I would have slammed into some trees. 100 yards later, I would have been stopped by a bridge and then possibly t-boned by oncoming traffic. Heck, I could have spun all the way across the median. I had arrived at walmart with 15 minutes to spare before their automotive center closed, and their workers stayed after to ensure my car was okay for the drive. The only damage that came out of this ordeal is in the picture above. That's it. Just a broken mirror.
So I guess my question for the readers would be, have any of you ever had a similar reality check where the result could have been exponentially worse? And if not, how would you have reacted in this situation?
That it is a scary situation. I would probably hyperventilate or something. You're very lucky that nothing worse happened like you ending up in the ER. I had been in situation like that. But I wasn't the one driving. It was my mother and some ran down white van went across the median onto the other lane. It literally scared the shit out of both of us. I am lucky that I never had to go to the hospital or gotten into a car accident. BTW I only have my permit. So I need to get my license soon.
ReplyDeleteI have had a few situations like that were you stop and think afterwards about how lucky you really were, so i'll share the most recent one. Just this last summer i was driving from South Florida to my best friends lake house in NC. It is a good 12 hour drive and i wanted to get there in the early afternoon so i could go out on the boat and whatnot the first day i was there. I decided that i was going to leave at 1 am. So i went to bed at 12 midnight and got one hour of sleep and started off on my journey. I made it all the way to North Florida/Georgia and i started to get tired so pulled off the road and took an hour power nap and back on the road i went. I drove for about 3 more hours and made it to South Carolina and was starting to get tired again but tried to push through it. Well i fell asleep at the wheel and woke up and my car was half on the interstate and half off of it. I immediately got off and took another nap. Now one of the things i pride myself on is being a good driver, and i know better than to drive when i'm that tired, but for some reason my lack of better judgement got me that time. I was and still am to this day extremely pissed off at myself for falling asleep, but it is what it is now. I am just thankful that i woke up and didn't get hurt or possibly worse. So needless to say I learned my lesson that hard way on that one.
ReplyDeleteI hate when scary things like this happen. Ill never forget the first time I hydroplaned. I was driving to Miami on Biscayne and as I made a U-turn onto a bridge it happened. I was terrified and cars were coming straight towards me. It was the longest 10 seconds of my life. The car swerved back into my control and I sped off before I could be hit. I was terrified. If there was a car next to me then BAM, I would've slammed right into it. It was awful. Also, I had a friend who was driving home from FSU last year and she hydroplaned and got into a really serious accident. Thank god she made it out a lie but her friend didn't unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteThat is really scary. When I was around 10 I was in the car with my younger sister, mom, and dad. We were trying to cross an intersection and the light ahead was really backed up so the two lanes of cars left room for us to go. We were almost across when my dad, the driver, looks to the passenger side and sees a car flying down the shoulder of the road. Luckily he speeds up and the car only hits the tail end up our car. My mom and sister were both on the passenger side and had some injuries but nothing too serious. If it weren't for my dad speeding up it could have been a lot worse.
ReplyDeletewow dude im glad you and your friend didn't get hurt. car accidents literally terrify me i already explained why in a past blog comment. those moments where you realize how lucky you are the best.i have had some experiences where i have been lucky. just last weekend i was at my friends place and seconds after i left an unidentified person knocked on his door and robbed him at gun point:O i honestly don't know how i would've reacted if i would've been there, but im glad i wasn't.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYeah I've had an incident like that. My friend Zoe and I were driving to a party at 11 o clock at night. We were literally 2 seconds away from the house. I just had to make a left at the light and it was the first house on the left. Anyways, this light was in a residential area and it was law at night so of course I thought that no one was coming and secondly, the car in front of me turned without stop pig so i figured that the street was empty. It was a red blinking light which meant that I was supposed to stop and then turn but i didn't. Well just my luck, i got t-boned and my car got totaled. It was an old camry I didn't like it anyways!
ReplyDeleteHaha I just went and got a haircut and on the way back I almost cut off a truck. Luckily I saw him before I hit him and went back in my lane. It just got me thinking, wow I was soooooo close to having an accident. Its ironic that this blog was posted at the same time lol. Now Im thinking how close we both came to being in way worse situations.
ReplyDeleteI have never been in a situation to this extent but I do know the feeling of being shaken up after a car accident. I was rear ended this past spring. Even though the accident wasn't a big deal, it made me realize how fast that second goes by. I could have been in a terrible crash and died. It just really makes you appreciate life.
ReplyDeleteI have had a situation too where I nearly had an car accident. One day after school was over I was driving home on a one way street where a lot of kids drive home on. There was a huge line of cars but everyone was going at a decent speed. However, suddenly the car in front of me slammed on his brakes. I slammed on my brakes too but realized I would not stop in time. So I swerved my car to the right into the grass. I avoided the crash but the four cars in front of my were not so lucky. All them rear ended each other. But it could have been worse. The car behind me was able to avoid the crash thanks to me swerving out the way, which allowed for her to have space. She could have been hurt too because she and her passengers did not have seat belts on. My car got scratched up; but it could have been worse.
ReplyDeleteI have had close encounters as well, but I witnessed a hydroplaning incident. People in gainesville are not capable of driving in the rain, or even in a drizzle. My family was piled in the car, and as were about to turn onto our exit, traffic stopped. Everyone came screeching to a stop. We were hit from behind, but when we and several other cars were pulled off onto the side of the road, thats when we saw the hydroplaning incident. A girl in the far left lane went to change lanes, and i guess she turned too sharply and she spun around and almost hit the car that had hit us. Of course at this point we ran off behind a tree, but we could see just how shaken she was. We were all very lucky that day, just as Bryan was over the weekend.
ReplyDeleteThat must've been so scary. I can't imagine what I would've done in that situation. Thank God you're okay! You could have had some serious damage. I haven't had such a tramatic experience as that but I do have a friend who has. One time my friend was driving home from the mall, it was raining, and he went to go make a right hand turn. Well, I guess his car some how hydroplaned and literally rolled over. His car was upside down and he had to get out. My friend is a pretty tiny kid so he rolled the window down and crawled out that way. He walked away without a scratch and his car only had roof and window problems. The paramedics couldn't believe that he wasn't hurt at all. He was so lucky...
ReplyDeleteThis actually kind of reminds me of a story my brother Ross had. He was driving on the interstate in Vermont and hit a patch of ice. His accident was a little bit more serious… his car flipped and rolled over on its side three times down a hill. There were two lucky parts of this accident for Ross. 1—he managed to get out of the car with nothing worse than a small bruise. 2—he claimed that Vermont hadn’t properly salted the roads (a process northern cities use to keep the roads from getting icy. It usually keeps cars from flipping and rolling off the interstate) and they paid for a new car. As his car was only about six months old they paid for a brand. New. Car. Crazy, right? Also, his insurance didn’t go up one penny since he was in an accident that ‘wasn’t his fault.’ Just thought I’d share the luckiest car crash story I’ve heard!
ReplyDeleteExcuse my language but holy shit! Are you okay? That is a horror story. I'm surprised you aren't more shaken up about it. That's crazy. I'm so glad to hear that you are okay. WHY DIDN'T YOU SHARE THIS IN CLASS?! that's such an awesome story! You could have been killed, or someone else, but you all survived, unharmed. God was certainly looking out for yall that day. Wow, that is incredible. Okay to answer your question lol. I would have freaked out. I would have literally just cried my eyes out from being so shaken up from the incident.
ReplyDeleteI have been in one car accident in my life. My dumbass friend decided to drive his charger 85 mph in my neighborhood and we ran in to a house. All of us left the scene unharmed but ever since this I have viewed cars totally differently. I am much more cautious and careful learning from his mistakes. I would have reacted the same in your information. That is a pretty scary situation but I am glad your alright.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to you was a miracle. I have no doubt about that. I don't understand why so many people say they believe in God, but when confronted with an amazing event, they claim it was just luck. Do people believe that God isn't powerful enough to help us? Regardless, that story was incredibly intense. I couldn't imagine how I would feel if it happened to me. I'm really, really glad nothing bad happened.
ReplyDeleteThat's so scary! Thank goodness nothing bad happened! I have a car accident story too. So my first and only accident happened behind a McDonald's. I was following my two best friends to DQ and as we made a right turn into the plaza I took my eyes off the road for literally a second. Before I knew it I slammed into my friend's Ford Ranger with my parent's Lexus. The entire front of the car was smashed in, engine fluid leaking, so my car was impossible to drive. I was going less than 20 MPH and there was so much damage to my car! There was no damage on my friend's car which was older than mine. At the time I thought this was so awful because after I got out of the car I hyperventilated and started crying because all I could think of was how mad my parents were going to be when I told them I crashed the only car we had. I didn't even think about if I was hurt or anything. Looking back on the situation it could have been a lot worse. I could have been on the interstate going 75 MPH and then crashed which would have been worse. After reading this story mine is nothing compared to this.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh!! I never would have expected this to be the story you told after I saw this picture in class. I assumed it was something small. Not HUGE like this. You are SO lucky that nothing worse happened to you. I personally haven't had anything this big happen to me. I have been in 2 accidents in my life. One of them was a 4 car pile up but the car I was in was the last one to hit so it really wasnt that bad. But the truck that got hit second spun off the road and someones head went through the window. Since I was the only one in the car wearing a seat belt I was fine. My ex-friend was an idiot and was texting while driving and didnt see the guy in front of her slam on his breaks at the last second. She was stupid. The second accident i was in was when a sophomore who just got his liscense rear ended me when I was completely stopped. Nothing big happened. I was fine. But both of those accidents still kind of scared me. It is amazing how close a lot of us come to getting seriously hurt or killed. We are all just very lucky.
ReplyDeleteDang you were extremely lucky! But at least you're okay! hmm well one summer, when I was in about 7th grade, my family and I were on a cruise and we decided to rent scooters in Belize, Mexico. For some reason I always choose to ride with my mom instead of my dad, the motorcycle rider. Not the smartest choice, but someone has to ride with her. The place was kind of sketchy but we just wanted to ride around and maybe stop at the beach. We had literally only been riding for maybe five minutes when we went to turn right at a 3 way intersection. I wouldn't really call this lucky, but the handles on the scooter were stuck and we couldn't turn. My mom, who knows why, just kept on pushing the gas or didn't put on the breaks or something and we t-boned a little truck. That was a little luckier than t-boning the building that was right on the other side of the truck. I had braces then and my face slammed into the back of my mom's helmet which just cut my mouth and made it bleed. But my mom broke her wrist. We saw the doctors on the cruise and they said nothing was wrong. Well they're really dumb because something was definitely wrong. Her wrist kept bothering her for a long time after that so she ended up having to get major surgery on it where they rebroke her arm. ew. But anyway, I guess our only lucky part was not running into the wall.
ReplyDeleteDamn, you got lucky. It's crazy how lucky you can get by being in the right place and time when something happens. I have only been in one accident and it was a bad one. I was with my ex, her mom, and a friend. Her mom was dropping us off at all of our houses. There is a median crossing where we had the right of way going straight and they had a stop sign. A car decided to turn and we had no time to brake. We T-boned into them and totaled our car. My ex broke her nose, cut her eye and lip open. She got a bad concussion too. Her mom broke her arm and our friend chipped her tooth. I was lucky and was perfectly fine. We all turned out okay and recovered, but it was scary. I'm glad to hear you are okay.
ReplyDelete