Christmas 2007 Car Accident

With a trip at hand, we began to get sick. First Rosie, then Sandy (our company arrived from Australia for a few days and Sandy worked hard at being good, but she did some throwing up in secret. Than Lilly was sick and added a fever to the mix, and then it was my turn.

We put off our December 26 trip until the 27th, and we went to New Jersey, usually an 8-10 hour trip. Max was in the kennel the day before as planned and off we went.

Past Buffalo, on the New York thruway, I got very tired, having already driven about 2 and a half hours, with a slight fever. I told Sandy I would have her drive as soon as we reached the next rest stop, as it’s too dangerous to stop on the highway and change drivers. It was just another 15 miles to go.

I was going about 65 mph in the left lane when I either passed out or fell asleep, but the result was the same. I awoke as we went careening off the road to the left, and the noise of the gravel woke me up. Traffic was coming behind me and was of course coming the other way. It was 10 a.m. and clear, thankfully (‘cause I’m still here to tell the story).

I was heading for a roadside pole (a highway marker I guess) and I was bound to hit it or flip over and roll. The ditch would have stopped me from going into oncoming traffic, probably. I slammed the brakes and cut to the right. The car began to roll left, hit the pole (like a pool ball) and bounced back off, glass went crashing into the car, and I did a 180, and landed in the right lane facing backwards on the highway. Thankfully, all traffic behind me (now in front of me) stopped.

I could not believe my eyes, everyone was alive (Lilly had a glass cut), all traffic stopped and the road looked like a weird movie shoot. I checked to see if the car was running, it was, and pulled the wrong way onto the right shoulder.

I waved to the traffic to go on, got my snow brush out and brushed out the window glass from the driver’s window, and got out of there as fast as possible in order not to get a reckless driving ticket.

Three miles ahead at the service center, our original destination, I bought a roll of Scotch tape and took a garbage bag and covered the window. A few miles ahead, I found a Home Depot and bout some heavy plastic sheeting (I couldn’t see through it of course) and some duct tape and taped up the window. I drive another 8 hours with very high wind noise coming from the plastic covering and tried not to get a ticket for driving with no window.

The rest was less problematic. I did finally find someone to replace the window so we could go home on the 30th, and I have a dented door and a broken (sheered off) running board but nothing else wrong.

I scared myself to death, and we drove home changing drivers every time we felt tired.