Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Near-Death Experience

There's an old joke about the baseball player who said he missed a home run by an inch. The listener asks "oh it hit the top of the fence" and the ballplayer replies "no, it missed my bat by an inch."
Similarly, I missed death or serious injury by an inch or two on the way to work a couple weeks ago.
The road wasn't particularly damp and I don't think it was raining or snowing at the time, but I came upon some sudden traffic, and the car in front of me braked suddenly, and I did the same, not jamming my brakes, and not getting anywhere near the car in front of me, when I hear a horrible screeching sound behind me. I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw a van skidding towards me (on a 3-lane road I was in the left, he was skidding between left and center, and the center laners were moving to the right lane to avoid him.)
I watched and listened and braced for impact, but he finally came to a stop, at a 20 degree angle, in both lanes, inches from my rear bumper.
Strange feeling sitting there watching a potentially serious accident come skidding towards you with nothing to do but wait and hope.
Thankfully it worked out fine, but my heart was beating pretty fast for the next few minutes.

2 comments:

jleary said...

My heart used to beat like that everytime I got into a car with Reissberg!! We were always inches from a near death experience

juice said...

anything go through your mind before the potential impact? always fascinated by those things...