Car Accidents

In 2001 I believe, my friends and I were driving on I-290 through Worcester to go to the local mall in order to finish some last-minute Christmas shopping.

I was driving (as usual).

I was in the middle lane of a 3-lane highway. There was a woman just in front of me, almost paralleling me, in the left lane. She put on her blinker and changed lanes DIRECTLY into me without looking first.

She sent my little purple Neon careening from the right shoulder to the left shoulder, out of control at 60MPH. I finally banked on the left guard rails.

We came to a stop and I CLEARLY remember asking "is everyone okay?" Jenn and Sarah both said yes. Calmly, I pulled the e-brake and put the car in park. I opened my door and I went to get out. AS SOON as I took my foot off the brake, the car FLEW into reverse.

I was knocked down, and I was being dragged at at least 30MPH backwards under the driver's door.

I clearly recall thinking to myself in a flash "if I don't put my head down on the pavement, I will die." I was aiming to let the door pass over me with putting my head down.

I put the side of my face on the moving pavement, and the door passed over me, taking the car and my friends inside down the highway at pretty good speeds.

Due to the extremely curvy nature of I-290 at this particular place, the Neon was stopped by a guard rail. The engine continued to rev and the tires kept spinning.

As soon as I could, I got up, RAN to the passenger doors and pried both the front and back doors open to let my friends out. The doors had been knocked pretty hard from hitting the right guard rails just after the woman hit us. Jenn and Sarah were stuck in the car.

Eventually, we got out. I ran, crying, to the meridian. Jenn and Sarah to this day laugh about how I was crying because "I tore my sock and it's Christmastime!" I was completely incoherent.

And then, Jim Morrison showed up. No joke, this guy was the spitting image of an older Jim Morrison. To this day, I will never understand what the fuck happened with this guy.

He came out of nowhere - he was in the middle of the highway, and there were NO cars around that he could have come from. But he showed up, shut off my engine (I was too terrified to go back and get stuck again) and came over to me.

"God is watching out for you tonight," he said. I VERY clearly remember laughing at him, while crying. I'm an avid atheist, you know - it was kind of funny at the time. But all I wanted to do was HUG this guy - very, very strange.

And as quickly as he showed up, he disappeared. I'm not a believer, but I will always remember that shit.

Anyways, the car was totalled. I had some serious injuries and was suspect of internal bleeding. My left leg had been run over (and is numb to this day). The entire front of my body was covered in horrendous bruising. I refused the ambulance.

The next day, I was feeling so horrible, I asked my mother to bring me to the ER. We went, and after about 6 hours of waiting, the doctor inspected me and said she had never seen such bruising. She wanted me to stay overnight, convinced I was internally bleeding.

I walked out of the hospital against medical advice, and I don't regret it. The bruises eventually faded and my face healed from the pavement cuts.

It was probably the scariest thing I've ever been involved in - but I am intensely grateful that we were all fine, save for my injuries.

I remember calling my boss that night, telling him I had been in an accident and couldn't make it to work the next day. He threatened my job. I had to go to work the next day, regardless of my injuries.

Jam it back in, in the dark.