NOTES: this is based on an accident I went through on Oct. 23rd, 1999. It was published in a book with other authors.
October 23, 1999 7:44 PM:
I was tired. Being on the graveyard shift was fun but exhausting, especially when you worked as a volunteer firefighter taking calls when you were supposed to be sleeping.
Since going to bed around 1 pm, I hadn't slept much at all, taking a call early in the afternoon of a person who had fallen off a ladder and injured his back.
When the pager went off about 15 til 8 later that evening, I so wanted to throw a pillow over my head, roll over and sleep the few more hours remaining before I had to get up.
Structure fire. The words flowed from the pager as my body immediately struggled awake as the adrenaline rushed through it. I jumped out of bed, being shocked awake by the loud beeping of the tones forcing my hands and legs to shake. I hurriedly got dressed, grabbed my truck keys and my glasses and rushed out the front door, remembering to hit the thumb latch on the knob to quickly lock it as I slammed the door closed behind me.
I ignored the chill of the mid October night, having chosen to wear the short sleeve department tee shirt and no jacket, i hoped into the truck and quickly started it.
Out of habit, I buckled my seat belt as I slammed it into reverse and sped out of the driveway.
Without thinking, I reached for the plug on the dash lights that was also connected to the Ko-Jack light clamped to the roof by a magnet and plug them in. The red and white lights filled the darkness in front me.
I flipped on the headlight wig-wags as I gained speed up the hill. a few seconds later, I was at the intersection and had flipped on the siren.
The traffic was normal for a Saturday night at that time but people were still kindly pulling to the right as I flew by them. Up ahead I could see the strange yellow flashing strobes of the city fire engine that was responding to help us out at the fire. They seemed close but were over a block away when they pulled out of their station.
They reached the major intersection about 30 seconds before I did. I was still a ways back and on a curve and didn't quite see them go through even though I did catch them hitting the dip on the other side of the intersection.
Soon I was at the busy intersection myself. I slowed, moving to the left turn lane even though I was planning on going straight. But it was the only lane clear.
My light was red.
All lanes around on both streets in all directions were full, except for the one I was in and another on the far side of the street running perpendicular to the one I was one.
I slowed dramatically, my right foot hovered over the brake as my left depressed the clutch. I reached down to my siren controls and began to flip through the various modes sending the 100 watt decibel sound piercing through the cold air as it ran it's course through the wails and yelps. Alternating every once in awhile with the air horn.
The traffic around me came to a stand still. I could see everyone's eyes on me. Some looked sadly on, others seemed curious, while even more seemed excited. Almost as much as I was heading out to another fire, hoping in mind that it was a real burning.
I wonder now if there was someone there that realized what was about to happen. Maybe those on the other side of the street could see it coming. Sub consciously tensing. Others may have looked on in shock, yelling out desperately at me hoping even though it was impossible, that I would hear them and stop.
But i didn't.
I had almost made it across.
I never saw it coming.
The impact knocked me sideways into the door. I
felt the truck lerch jerkidly to the left. Time moved in slow motion.
The truck seemed to hover tilted on it's left side wheels forever. I started to slip out of my seat belt and I thought I was going too completely. Then I slammed down onto the ground. The impact was so hard, I thought surely I had hit another vehicle with the tail end of my truck. For where I had thought I had landed, there were cars in all the lanes.
Later I found out that in one of those cars, a little boy pointed out to his mother the flipping truck as it came towards them, saying in his child's voice that it was going to hit me. Thankfully she was able to throw it into reverse and back up before my truck could collide with them.
Through the windshield, I could see the world spin around. Then it stopped.
The truck rocked back and forth on the driver's side that it had landed on. My mind seemed to scream at me that it was going to roll over.
Finally, after what seemed minutes but in reality was only seconds, I came to a stop.
I was confused and disoriented. I wasn't sure what I had to do or exactly what had happened only that I had wrecked out. I thought I was facing the same direction I had been headed but once I looked through the windshield once more, and saw the headlights of on coming traffic, I knew I was more likely facing the way I had come.
I turned my engine off and for some reason took the keys out of the ignition. Amazingly the engine was still running despite the fact that it was a standard transmission and I was laying on my side.
I reached for my siren controls and quickly turned it off. Next I yanked the light cord out of the cigarette plug in, plunging me into semi darkness. I tried to turn my headlights off but my blurry mind instead reached for the windshield wiper controls and tried to turn them off via them. Giving up, I searched around the pile of medical forms and maps laying on the window underneath me until I found my glasses and then my hand held radio.
With my voice shaking as well as my hands, I called into the county advising I had been in an accident and needed an ambulance. I was unsure how many vehicles had been involved or if there were any injuries, including myself.
The dispatcher later told me I had fully identified myself with my fire department name and id. Told her exactly where I was and had answered her inquiry as to if I was involved or not. Twice. She talked to me for a short while, trying to calm me but all I knew then at that moment was that I wanted out.
I looked around the overturned cab, trying to find away out. I could see lights through the back window which seemed strange since I had known the sliding window had been closed and the tint should have kept the shine out. There was a gap in my passenger door over my head and I silently pondered if I could fit through it.
I heard people around me calling out to me inquiring if I was ok. Telling me to hang on that help was on the way. I didn't know if I was hurt or not. All I knew was I wanted out badly.
I saw a vehicle rush into the intersection in front of me, lights and siren blaring. It was a SUV and I assumed it was a county unit. It turned out to be the county fire marshall who was enroute to the same fire I was. The county at first thought it was him and I that had collided but he quickly advised them the truth.
The city was getting reports of an over turned fire truck in the intersection. The same fire engine I had seen pull out ahead of me, wasn't answering the radio. The ambulance crew from the same station, heard the dispatcher tell the Battalion Chief who was also enroute to the fire what they were getting and what was going on. The ambulance medics fearing their comrades were hurt, jumped into the box and rushed to the scene.
The Chief met them as they pulled up, advising them it wasn't the engine but then it was me who they knew. Since one of the two was part of my family.
He approached my truck, talking to me, asking me if I was injured anywhere. Having him there seemed to snap me out of the stunned state I was in and I was then able to take account of what hurt. I informed him that my head hurt. My right side at the hip and my left knee also hurt. My forearms felt like they had been scrapped against the ground and my right leg was numb but I could still move it easily.
He advised me that they were going to have to cut me out, as he handed me his helmet and bunker coat through the gap of the passenger door and the roof of my truck.
It took them several minutes. My truck was rocked back and forth several times as I clung to the steering wheel thinking all the while that my airbag hadn't gone off.
Outside, I could hear the crunch of the glass being shattered and the snap of unknown body parts of my truck being split apart.
The captain of the engine crew finally advised it was ok. The family member of mine told me to take it easy as I carefully crawled out through the newly shattered windshield, all the while telling me that if anything started to hurt to immediately stop. So far nothing really did.
Until I stood full up, finally free.
My head was spinning and had a dull ache. My lower back and right side felt like someone had punched me there several times. My left knee felt as if a knife had been driven through it.
I started to cry then and my family member held me in a big hug. He had been relived at first to find out that it hadn't been his engine crew but then the fear rose in him when his chief told him who it was.
He helped me to the ambulance where they loaded me up on the stretch for the ride to the hospital which was across town. I was given an ice pack for my head and we headed out.
At the hospital, I was given the unbelievable news. The investigating officer told me that I had rolled my vehicle a few times. The roof had been crumpled. The cause was a small car that had slammed into my passenger door at highway speeds, shoving it inwards about two feet.
After about an hour, I was released with instructions to take off a few days from work and school and visit my personal doctor as well. The diagnosis was a mild concussion, a bone bruise to the left knee, scraps on my forearms and bruises that covered my right side and both hips, as well as a few scratches from the seat belt strap grinding my necklace into sternum. I would feel the effects for a couple of weeks, but I was alive.
Alive after walking away from two of the most deadly forms of a vehicle collisions, a high speed t-bone and a roll over.
But all I could think about was the dream or nightmare rather that I had had a few weeks prior. The same dream where I had seemingly gone through the exact same thing that had just happened to me.
Was it a warning that I should have heeded or was it just something that was meant to be?
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