Profile: Chris S.
Spiritual snapshot: My second chance at life
On the morning of July 12, around 7 am, I was on my way to work. I had been out very late the night before at a wedding and was very tired. About 5 minutes from work I fell asleep at the wheel. I woke up immediately after hearing the wheels of the car hit the gravel shoulder to my right. I reacted suddenly and turned the wheel, causing the car to spin a 180 degrees, cross the highway sideways, hit the other gravel shoulder and flip.
While I was spinning across the highway, I remember gripping the steering wheel really tightly, but thinking calmly to myself, “I’m really out of control here. I’m going to flip.”
As I hit the opposite shoulder and flipped, I remember just sitting in my seat, not being jostled or jerked around and not hanging onto anything. Then, the car landed, slid, and finally stopped. I was upside down and the first thing I realized was the smell of gas. I thought I should do something quickly, like get out of the vehicle. Then I realized this buzzing or ringing noise to my left, and it was the key alarm. The car engine was off and the keys were still in the ignition, but as my eyes followed the sound, I couldn’t figure out why the keys, the steering column, and the whole driver’s seat was off to my left, and why I was in the passenger’s seat.
Not putting much thought into it at the time, I suddenly realized this tingling or burning sensation across my chest. It was the seatbelt with all my weight on it. I remember having to press the belt buckle quite hard against my hipbone in order to release the seat belt. After a minor struggle, it finally released and all my weight was on my head against the roof. I curled around the passenger seat and worked my way out of the rear passenger door. Having exited the car, I stood up. There was tall grass around my car where it had landed and so I could not see the degree of damage done to my car.
So, being my first accident, I was rather excited and decided to look inside the car to make sure I had all the details straight. In short, what had happened was that I had been driving down the road in the driver’s seat (as most people do) with the driver’s seatbelt on. When the car landed, I was in the passenger seat with the passenger seatbelt on. I know this for several reasons: the car I was driving was a 1988 Celebrity that had low driver and passenger seats with a high consul in between them which made it virtually impossible to go from one seat to the other; regardless of a seatbelt. But I did have my driver’s seatbelt on, which makes it that much more impossible.
In trying to figure out what happened, I assumed that I got thrown over to the passenger seat while still in the driver’s seatbelt.
But, this being the case:
A. the seatbelt would not reach to the passenger seat
B. the seatbelt would have had to break in order to reach – which it hadn’t.
C. I don’t remember at any time being jostled or thrown around
D.If it were the driver’s seatbelt, I would have had to reach across the consul and press against it in order to release it. This, however, was not the case. I had to press the buckle against my hipbone in order to release the seatbelt.
E. Finally, I saw it for myself.
Eventually the ambulance arrived, and while they were checking me over (and before they strapped me onto a wooden board with duct tape for precaution), a police officer came up to the ambulance and asked for my ID. He asked me “Was there anyone else in the car with you?”
I said “no.”
“There was no one with you, no one who helped you out of the car?”
“No, just me.”
After giving me my I.D. back, I remember him closing the door to the ambulance and walking away, shaking his head in disbelief. I didn’t understand why he didn’t believe me. Not until I saw the car’s damage a week later did I understand. I remember seeing the totality of the damage the following Saturday. The car had landed on the front, driver side corner, causing the front and side window to implode and the roof of the car to fold over the steering wheel and driver’s seat. Only crushed metal and glass filled the driver’s seat, whereas in the passenger seat there was just enough room for someone to sit with their hands on their lap.
That’s when it hit me.