Saturday 15 January 2011

Escaping Death

There are times in your life when you look back and realise how lucky you are and the 22nd December 2010 was one of those days.


I was driving home late in the evening after a long day and was about to make a detour as someone had left their phone in my vehicle. I gave them a quick call and said I’d be five minutes as I was literally around the corner.

The five minutes never came as whilst driving down a main round on my normal route, my car was hit directly in the side by a car travelling at 50mph.




There are something’s in life that you look back on and say as much as it was a bad experience, I’m glad I experienced it. This isn’t one of those things.

Whilst travelling listening to my music, what I didn’t know was that on a side road to my right, the police were chasing a car. To add to that, the roads were icy, and the car had no lights on.

The first thing I knew of the impact was the pain. It’s amazing as everything happened in slow motion – yet I missed so many details.

I had never been in a car crash before, so the pain I felt I had no idea whether I was dying or what the state of my injury was. What I knew for sure was that I was in pain.

I’d never forget this, but there was a guy walking past with a bike at his side. At that time I was trapped in the car and our eyes made direct contact as by this time I had no window as this had been smashed in the impact. I couldn’t speak at that time, but the look in my eyes told him I was in pain. He looked at me and walked right by.

In front of me I could see the car that had hit me in the side and thrown me onto the pavement. I could also see a police car, but for some reason no one was coming.

Seconds or minutes later, a police officer came to my car and asked if I was ok. What I know now is that they had got out to chase the people that were driving the car that had hit me. I initially thought that maybe they were involved in the crash as their car was also in the middle of the road.

The officer was in a panic, “oh my god – are you ok”? I said I want to get out the car, “I want to get out the car”. He asked me if I could move my legs of which I replied yes. The problem was that I was being pinned in my car so couldn’t get out.

I needed to get the seat belt of (The fact I had it on was amazing as I was only driving my car for probably less than a minute. I usually put my seat belt on once I’m in motion) and asked him did he have a knife. He did, and after a couple of cuts I managed to pull myself out of the car through the roof that had flown of with the impact.

I wanted to sit down in the back seat of the police car at some point, but they encouraged me to keep standing until the ambulance came. The emergency services where there within minutes; both paramedics and fire brigade.

After a quick examination I was told I needed to go to hospital as after looking at the state of the car and taking onboard the speed of the impact, they were amazed that I was firstly alive and secondly on my feet.

Of to the hospital I went on the blue lights as they called in the trauma. Like an episode out of ER, when I arrived the doctors were waiting for me to check me over. Worrying stuff! Even though you feel ok (in pain of course), you’re hoping that they are going to say that everything is ok.

Thankfully it was excluding some bruising. I was kicked out a few hours later and went home to email the pictures of the accident that had been taken of the scene to some of my closest friends and family.

I guess it was my way of showing them that I was ok, but also a reminder that things can change so quickly. I had been in contact with my cousin and a co worker within minutes before my accident. They could have easily been the last people that had spoken to me alive.

The accident hasn’t changed much for me apart from I know it cannot just happen to someone else, but those horrible things you read about can happen to me also.

I have been very thankful of life over the last few years, and every second I remember throughout my day, I often say thank you god for blessing me.

I used to wait to see something bad happen, and then say to myself I need to make changes. I’m thankful that in more recent years, I’ve actively been trying to be more productive in my life, and overall continue to be positive.

Treasure today as you don’t know what tomorrow or the next hour/ minute may bring. Make good those things that are on your mind, whether they be friendships, relationships with family or just areas of your life you’re not happy with.

We are a temple, but a fragile one at that. Be thankful as no matter how unlucky we are – things have the potentially to get a lot lot worse.