the day I almost......
Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005
Something reminded me of this anniversary the other day. I can't remember exactly what it was, it may have been a news story or something gory on tv, but I was a bit suprised to find that it has almost been 5 years to the day that my life could have taken a major change in direction.
Some of you may have been told about this before, apologies if you have, but read on if you are interested or can't remember me telling it.
August 24, 2000.
I had taken a weeks leave from work with no great plans to do much. Just the usual running around paying bills, sleeping in, shopping and just generally lying around. I had bought a car about 12 months earlier and as it was reasonably new and safer than my previous rides I though i should go for a bit of a long distance drive. In this case I decided to drive down to the South East to the town of Mount Gambier, a mere 5-6 hour drive away.
I headed off on Wednesday the 23rd early in the morning and the drive up was all very new to me. You pass through the hills and river land and then into pine forests before arriving in Mount Gambier which is famous for its "Blue Lake". I got familiar with the town for the rest of the afternoon and found a cabin to stay in for the night. I drove about 30km over to the South Australia/Victorian border to a town called Nelson and had a look around. I think I ventured out and found somewhere to eat and headed back for a good nights sleep.
The next day was a grey and fogged over day. Back then I only had a 35mm camera, so the photos weren't quite as good, infact I can't even find them at the moment. The pics you are about to see were taken by my dad.
Because the drive home was a fairly long one, I decided to head back before lunch time. It was a dreary day and I took a few detours along the way to see some coastal spots that I hadn't stopped in at along the way there the day before.
Well, it happened all pretty quickly. I had the cruise control set on about 110km/h (68mph) and was rounding a sweeping bend on the Princes highway when a car started to enter the road from the left hand side. It seemed strange, as they were coming out from what was a turn in meant for traffic from the other direction.
The woman who was driving must have become disoriented and claimed later that she had blacked out. When I struck them, they were stationary in the middle of both lanes and I had swerved had to the right to avoid hitting them square side on. The impact spun them around 180 degrees and as far as I can tell I didn't hit the brakes as there were no skid marks on the side of the road.
After hitting them I continued over to the other side of the road with their car brushing past my left hand side where I came to lie in a sand bank. My airbag had deployed the car had filled with smoke. I remember putting the car back into park, stupid I know, because the engine had since seized and was in several pieces. I then stumbled out of the car grasping my mobile phone while the two occupants of the other car also got out.
I was so glad they were alive.
The rest was a bit of a blur. There had been a car behind me for over 100km and they had witnessed the whole thing, they later backed up my insurance claim which went through without a hitch.
The two people in the other car (a rental) were Irish tourists who were to return home 3 days later. The admitted fault to the whole incident despite me being in the car that hit them. The female occupant and myself were taken by ambulance to a country town hospital about half an hour away where we were held before being transported back to Adelaide. Her partner wasn't injured and wasn't held in hospital. Surprisingly, I didn't have a scratch on me, my dad had raced up from the city and found me in the hospital before I was sent on a 200km long ambulance ride to the Royal Adelaide Hospital for the night. After a few hours of observation, x-rays and poking around they released me to go home.
One very long day.
Apparently I freaked my parents out with a few phone calls in the moments after the accident. My parents hadn't spoken a word in over 10 years, but in that afternoon, they were the most civil to each other than they had been in years. I had hoped that something like this wouldn't cause any dramas between them, but was happy to know that they put their differences aside for the sake of sorting out a family drama.
Well, all the aftermath took months to sort out. The car insurance company went belly up a few months after they paid out my claim, so I was lucky in more way than one. Doctors bills mounted up, and I refused to pay them as I wanted the rental car companies insurance to collect the lot.
A month after the fact I bought the car that I only sold a few months ago this year, it was identical to the one that was written off in the accident, except for the colour.
I'll leave you with the pictures.....
The day before...
~MJ~
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mackaj at 9:18 p.m.