Temping, Sideswipes, and Crooked Tow Truck Drivers Part #3

I will not restate the facts from Part #1 and Part #2, so if you have not read them yet, please do before continuing.

OK, are you ready? You better be, because this is going to be like a hydrant in a NY summer.

I left the football game a little after nine. It was a short easy trek back to my apartment, and at this time of night, it would take twenty minutes if I was lucky. However, on this night I was unlucky and did not get back home for seven hours.

As I mentioned, it was raining, and had been steadily all night, but it never downpoured, it was more of that depressing light-but-constant rain that just refuses to quit. This is what I drove home in, while I was tired beyond belief. Taking the normal route home, I got onto the state route with a speed limit of 55, where there was two lanes in each direction. This was not some country road (more like the gateway between to suburbs). I was cruising along, going the speed limit, when I approached an intersection. The car in front of me got into the left turn lane as the light turned yellow. Considering the conditions, I figured the best bet was to hit the gas and head through the intersection, after all I had plenty of time.

The woman in the Cadillac heading in the other direction and making a left turn decided that I did not have enough time. This miscommunication caused her to turn left through my lane as I went through the intersection. Considering that I was going 55 and she was going 2, I would have though that she would realize her mistake, in that I was going through a yellow light during the rain no less, and yield to me, as is the law. I could not have been more wrong.

[brief note here, My right headlight was busted, but at that this time I think it was working. What happened was I pulled into a car and shattered the fixture about two years before this happened. I put a sheet of translucent Teflon over the gaping hole, which allowed for the light to shine through, though much dimmer than normal. This is relevant because the good light may have been obstructed by the car heading my direction that was in the left turn lane, leaving only the busted light exposed to traffic in the other direction. Either way, the light was visible and the Caddy driver never mentioned it, so neither did I.]

The driver of the Cadillac (it was a 2004) decided to ignore my right of way, and the dangerous conditions and proceeded to make her left turn. Unfortunately, her left turn was right into the driver side door of my car. Not really into the driver side door; she hit me about two feet ahead of the door. I heard the tearing of metal and the shattering of plastic while I thought "is this bitch crazy?" She must have been, because after the initial hit, her car kept moving forward, so she must have kept her foot on the gas because her car kept tearing into mine. Her car kept moving forward, and smashed into the driver's side door of my car. This is where I was sitting, and I can tell you, that getting hit by a car hurts like a son of a bitch. But that is nothing compared to getting flipped around.

I really believe that she may not have kept her foot on the gas, but the fact that my car was moving so fast made any reaction difficult, so after her car severely scraped my door, it continued onto the back seat doors of my four-door. There was a serious discrepancy in the indent in the drivers side door and the back-seat passenger door. The back door indents at least five inches more. I attribute this to the fact that my hip prevented the drivers side door from indenting more (see the next post for the battle wound). Physics was controlling the whole situation, and they did not relent. After she tore through my back-door, there was nothing left to destroy, so my car went into a 360.

It is just like a pinwheel. She hit me, ran out of things to hit, and thus sent me into a tailspin. I went into the spin, and lost all recollection. There is the saying that when you get into a car accident, everything happens in slow motion. I remember nothing in slow motion. Everything is fast and a blur of noise, pain and spinning. However, I do not remember the entire spin, which is why I think I hit my head on the window and shattered it (though there was no damage to my head afterwards). Regardless, what happened after she started to spin me was I did a 360 in the intersection, and then flew off the road. Literally flew, there was a five foot drop due to the ditch at the side of the road. The landing blew out all of my tires (the Dukes of Hazard is BS). I continued to roll for another forty feet, about three feet from ending up in a corn field. I probably only blacked out for a second, but based on the physical evidence this is what happened.

The first thing I did was turn off my car. I will be damned if I am going to die in some retarded explosion. Then I wiggled my toes, and once I was confident I had feeling in all my extremities I took a look around. The windshield was cracked, and the two windows on the driver's side were gone. I was a little dazed, thinking "holy shit, am I dead?" My question was answered when a Good Samaritan ran up to my car and asked me if I was ok. I replied I was, and he ensured that I had not suffered paralysis before stating that he was running to the gas station across the street to call the cops. He also told me not to move. I sat there for two minutes not moving before I realized that I was not seriously hurt. It was at that point that I made sure my iPod was safe. I had it stowed in the center console of my car, and was relieved to see that it had survived. I put it in my pocket. The driver's side door was completely busted and would not open, so I shuffled over to the passenger door and got out. I immediately regretted it. I started shaking like a leaf during a hurricane.

I took some carefully calculated steps to survey the damage done to my car, when the bitch driving the Cadillac came up to me and started yelling at me. She said that I ran a red light. I just said something like, "well let's just wait til the cops show up." I knew I did not run a red light, though it may have been close, I was hoping a witness would corroborate my story to the cops. And one did. When the cops showed up, they started by interviewing me, and I told them that I was heading through a yellow light. I made no mention of the fact that I had been up since 3 am, since it was now 10 pm. The witness came up to me while I was talking to the cops and said he was amazed that my car did not flip over when I went off the road. This did not make me feel better. In fact, I have no idea to this day what the witness said to the cops. He was behind the bitch that turned into me, so he had a great view of what happened. All I heard was "I don't think she saw him." That was enough for me.

After the interviews were complete, the cops asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. I said I thought that might be a good idea, considering my left hip was killing me. The last thing I needed was a broken pelvis, especially considering I had no health insurance. If I could get the bitch to pay for it I figured it would be worth it. So I said I wanted to go to the hospital. An ambulance was called and they strapped me down to a board and drove me to the hospital.

The immaculate conclusion. Part 4 coming soon . . .