Writer's Block: Close Call
May. 21st, 2009 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blackberry444[Error: unknown template qotd]Many years ago, when I lived in Newbrough, I was driving my MGBGT to work along a country road, when I hit a patch of black ice; I couldn't do the correct thing by driving into the skid as someone was in the way, so I did the wrong thing, performed a wall-of-death along the bank, turned right over in mid-air and landed right-side up and at right angles to the road facing the opposite hedge. When I realised I couldn't control the car, I hurled myself face down onto the front passenger seat, as I wasn't wearing a seatbelt. I couldn't believe that I was totally unscathed, although a few pieces of windscreen had landed up in the tops of my boots; even the radio was still playing.
The car was a wreck all down the driver's side, with the worst damage where my head would have been; it must have been the one accident in a million which would have been worse for the driver had she been wearing the seat belt. I got out of the car and immediately slipped on the black ice and gave the people in the other car the impression that I was worse than I actually was.
The driver of the other car was none other than the mechanic who was supposed to be giving the MG a service that day, and had I remembered that, the accident would never have happened, because I would have dropped the car off at the garage which was between home and the place of the accident.
He rushed over and said "Are you all right?", to which I replied "My car, my car, look at my beautiful car". He rashly said "Don't worry about that, I can fix that. Are you all right?"
I insisted on going to work and when I went into the general office I met a very upset chap who had passed the accident and didn't know where I was.
I say that I was unscathed, but that evening in the pub I started to cry and someone gave me a cigarette, which led me to take up smoking again after a gap of four years and it was another nine years before I managed to give it up again. And I did have an aching shoulder for a few days where the briefcase on the passenger seat had clobbered me at some stage during the incident.
I have never again driven without a seat belt, as I reckon that a similar freaky escape from death or serious injury by virtue of not wearing a seat belt was unlikely to ever happen to me again.
And Brian the mechanic did restore my car to its former glory, in fact it was even better, because we changed the colour from boring old white to super-duper British Racing Green.
The car was a wreck all down the driver's side, with the worst damage where my head would have been; it must have been the one accident in a million which would have been worse for the driver had she been wearing the seat belt. I got out of the car and immediately slipped on the black ice and gave the people in the other car the impression that I was worse than I actually was.
The driver of the other car was none other than the mechanic who was supposed to be giving the MG a service that day, and had I remembered that, the accident would never have happened, because I would have dropped the car off at the garage which was between home and the place of the accident.
He rushed over and said "Are you all right?", to which I replied "My car, my car, look at my beautiful car". He rashly said "Don't worry about that, I can fix that. Are you all right?"
I insisted on going to work and when I went into the general office I met a very upset chap who had passed the accident and didn't know where I was.
I say that I was unscathed, but that evening in the pub I started to cry and someone gave me a cigarette, which led me to take up smoking again after a gap of four years and it was another nine years before I managed to give it up again. And I did have an aching shoulder for a few days where the briefcase on the passenger seat had clobbered me at some stage during the incident.
I have never again driven without a seat belt, as I reckon that a similar freaky escape from death or serious injury by virtue of not wearing a seat belt was unlikely to ever happen to me again.
And Brian the mechanic did restore my car to its former glory, in fact it was even better, because we changed the colour from boring old white to super-duper British Racing Green.
