Well, I Always Did Want to Flip a Car, pt. 3

I just realized that I never explained what the heck the title of this series of posts meant. (Check out Part 1 and Part 2 if this makes no sense to you.)

You guys are going to think we're sick.

Here's the thing -- Mr. Man is kind of a thrill-seeker. And I'm sort of an adrenaline junkie. Meaning, we do stuff like jump off the roofs of our houses, and take 150 foot free falls at carnivals, and both of our "back-up life plans" have something to do with being stunt drivers. So, while, yes, the wreck was terrifying. And yes, B-Fray did get hurt and that's awful. And yes, it was dangerous, and horrible, and we're beyond lucky to be alive. But, looking back, the actual act of flipping, of being totally off the ground and not controlled by gravity, was kind of... fun. Once I knew I was safely on the ground, and still breathing, and not harmed, and B-Fray was still conscious and okay, I could admit that it was kind of cool that we walked away from that unscathed, kind of like in an action movie.

And so, when we got home, and had a moment to breathe, and knew B-Fray was safe in his bed, Mr. Man looked at me and said, "Well, I always did want to flip a car."

So that's that story. Now if you want to see photos of the Jeep post-wreck, Mr. Man's mom had to take some for insurance and sent them to me. If you don't want to see them, I'd navigate away from the page now.

My view from inside the car. Thankfully, they cleaned up all B-Fray's blood.

This was the only window that stayed remotely intact.

Yeah. We're lucky to be alive.

Well, I Always Did Want to Flip a Car, pt. 2

Before you read this, ready part 1 here. Sorry it's so long, but it's just a lot that happened.

...When I finally uncurled myself from my huddled crouch, there was a bar on top of me; part of the roof that had broken off. I pushed it aside, and reached for the boys in the front, trying to make sure they were moving, conscious, alive.

I can’t remember exactly what happened next. I think Mr. Man asked if everyone was okay and that’s when we realized B-Fray was bleeding pretty hard. The next thing I knew, I was on the phone with 911 people, telling them where we were, trying to get them to us. At some point, we realized my door was jammed shut, and Mr. Man asked me to crawl into the front because I was shivering pretty violently and he was shaking because he was terrified. I sat in his lap and he wrapped his jacket around both of us and we both talked to B-Fray, comforting him and ourselves.

The cops arrived first. Then the firemen. Then the ambulance. Mr. Man, who was remarkably entirely unscathed, got out to go talk to the police, and the firemen came to B-Fray and I, doing a preliminary check up before the paramedics could get there. I remember being incredibly calm: I was comforting B-Fray, talking to the firemen, telling them to get him help first. I remember making a joke, even. That’s how I always am in emergencies; I’m the best person to have around, honestly.

At some point, they asked me to step out of the vehicle. I walked to the side, completely alone, and leaned against the barrier that we’d crashed into just minutes before. That’s when what had just happened hit me. I was looking at the road, noting that there was more broken glass than snow on the ground. I was staring off at where Mr. Man was telling the cops exactly what happened. I watched the paramedics get B-Fray out of the car and take him into the ambulance; he was being supported on either side and looked woozy. I stared at the Jeep, and marveled that we’d survived at all. B-Fray’s side was completely caved in, both bumpers were gone, my door was dented in, and all the windows were busted out. I broke down and started crying.

A fireman noticed, a nice guy with kind blue eyes and a bushy blond mustache, and he put me inside the fire truck, telling me to keep warm. They let Mr. Man join me pretty soon, and we stood in there together, hugging each other, answering questions as we were asked them, but basically just trying to keep from falling apart. He called his mom, got her to come pick us up, and soon, the paramedics released B-Fray to come sit with us. What had looked super nasty was really just a flesh wound, and while he needed to go to the hospital, an ambulance wasn’t necessary.

He was covered in blood though. It was down his face, all over his clothes, matted in his hair that hadn’t been ripped out. I made a joke that he should take a picture of himself, make it a little more zombie-like and use it for his Facebook profile picture around Halloween. It was the first time he or I laughed afterward.

As the firemen found our stuff, they brought it to us in the car – my purse had ended up on the other side of the highway, everything still in it except the set of diamond earrings Mr. Man gave me for Valentine’s. Mr. Man’s radar detector, one of his shirts, B-Fray’s wallet. They were so sweet, so helpful.

Mr. Man and I finally took a moment to look ourselves over – I had a few bruises from hitting the door and the tire jack hitting me, and we both had a concussion and could feel some soreness from whiplash setting in. I looked at the Jeep again and realized that our lack of injuries should have been impossible.

A cop came and gave Mr. Man a ticket: “unsafe speed for the weather conditions” which was utter BS if you ask me. Then, they gave all three of us a ride to IHOP, which was right across the street from the hospital. We walked B-Fray over there (why the cops didn’t take us there, I don’t know). By then, it was past 3 am. We stayed with him in the ER until 6, where we watched Lilo and Stitch with Mr. Man’s mom and B-Fray’s dad. That was the first time Mr. Man smiled, and it was then that I finally started feeling like we would be okay. At 6, Mr. Man’s mom took us back to my car, and Mr. Man and I went back to his apartment.

He was asleep in moments, but every time I closed my eyes, I was back in the car, flipping over again. I started shaking, and I didn’t sleep much that day. At 8, I (finally) called my mom and told her what happened – they were upset I didn’t call sooner, but happy I was alive. When I told them how damaged the car was, they were shocked we weren’t more hurt.

I still am, honestly. As I write this, my head is hurting at about a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10, which is pretty good for 36 hours after a concussion. I’m still pretty sore, especially in my neck, and I’ve noticed quite a few small but pretty distinct bruises on my back and arms. B-Fray is up and about, doing well, and Mr. Man has a slight headache, but is 100% fine otherwise.

We shouldn’t be this okay. Mr. Man went to the impound lot and looked at the Jeep one more time with the insurance guys, to see if anything was salvageable (it’s not). He called me after and told me we were beyond lucky. We shouldn’t have walked away so close to unscathed. We shouldn’t have walked away at all, honestly. If I’d been driving by that scene, I would have expected the people in the car to have been taken away in an ambulance, if not care-flight-ed out. We were so lucky, guys. So, so lucky. And I still can’t quite believe it.

(img cred. No, we didn't take a single photo of the accident.)

Well, I Always Did Want to Flip a Car, pt. 1

I’m taking a break from the Weekend Whoop this week. Not to do some spring break coverage, but to talk about the worst moment of my spring break. I can’t get this out of my head, and I’m hoping that maybe writing it down, examining it piece by piece, will help me.

On Saturday, around 4 pm, it started snowing. Not hard, not intense, just little flurries. It wasn’t sticking though, so my friends and I had no problem going out to dinner at 7. Driving in it certainly built up my confidence, so at 9 when Mr. Man called and asked if I felt up to a trip to a town about 30 minutes away to go visit a few friends of ours, I was all for it. We took a 4-wheel drive Jeep to be safe, and on our way there, we didn’t have a problem – the snow had stopped falling, it was about 35 degrees out, so it was just barely sticking. It looked like it would be gone by morning.

We stayed at our friend’s place until about 2 am. We were having fun, kind of forgot about the snow, didn’t notice the temperature was dropping. When we did notice, we considered sleeping there. But Mr. Man had to be at work, I needed to go back to school in the morning. We needed to be back in our beds that night. So, we drove.

It was a mistake.

Mr. Man was driving. Our friend B-Fray was riding shotgun – I was supposed to be (we have a weird norm that girlfriend of driver always sits shotgun), but I insisted he take it. I wanted to lay down in the back because I was exhausted and a little queasy.

I hate myself for insisting on that.

Almost as soon as I got in the back, I leaned my head against the driver’s seat. I didn’t want to look out the window, you know? I don’t normally get car sick, but with the way I was already feeling, I knew that seeing the contrast of the white snow and the dark road/sky flying by the window would make me more sick. I had my right arm wrapped around the chair, in Mr. Man’s jacket pocket. I didn’t have my own and my hands were freezing.

We had been driving ten minutes, maybe fifteen, when it happened.

Suddenly, we were fishtailing. It came out of nowhere. As stupid as this sounds, it didn’t feel like a big deal at first. We’d fishtailed in his Jeep before. My car doesn’t handle water well at all, so I’m pretty used to a little hydroplaning now and again and know how to recover from it.

Mr. Man and B-Fray shouted from the front seat. “Oh shit,” they were yelling over and over again, and I glanced up, looking out the window. I saw we were spinning, I saw snow, and suddenly, I saw the concrete median. It was much closer to the car than I was comfortable with. Mr. Man and B-Fray kept shouting. I could hear Mr. Man working to recover, trying to stop the Jeep. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around the front seat and wedged my head between them.

For a moment, it felt like we’d recovered. I think there was actually a split second where I felt slightly relieved. But then, the back end of the car slammed into the median. By the time it hit, we’d done a full 180 degree spin, and when we bounced off, we spun another 180 degrees.

Mr. Man and B-Fray were yelling throughout that whole part. It wasn’t anything constructive, just a string of curse words; a chant almost. Weirdly enough, I wasn’t scared throughout any of that. There simply wasn’t time for fear.

I guess the car couldn’t handle all the spinning, because it started flipping. We rolled once, maybe twice, none of us are really sure. It felt like gravity had stopped acting on us. We were just falling, spinning, flipping, completely out of control, at mercy to the unforgiving pavement.

That’s when I finally got scared. I could hear every crunch of the car slamming into the road. I heard the all windows breaking and the body of the Jeep crushing, screeching, screaming against the asphalt. When we landed on B-Fray’s side, I heard the sunroof cave in and I heard his head hit the pavement. I heard Mr. Man’s body slam into the steering wheel and into his door. I heard more than I felt myself slam into the door, and my window break above me, showering me with glass.

Most of all though, I could hear that neither boy was making a sound. They were dead silent and being tossed around like rag dolls in the front. That scared me. I was so, so terrified that they were unconscious, or worse, dead.

Suddenly, we stopped moving. Somehow, miraculously, we were right side up.

Part 2 tomorrow.


(img cred. That isn't Mr. Man's Jeep, but looks a lot like it used to.)