Our driver Alain was nervous driving on the highway, and whenever a car would pass, we would drive a little bit on the shoulder, or sometimes a lot on the shoulder. This was making Mike very nervous. Vijay and I continued to assure him that the driver knew what he was doing (maybe there are a lot of drunk drivers, or maybe bandits try to tap you so that you pull over and then rob you). In the past, our initial reactions to driving were all wrong (it’s bad to hit a motorcycle; you shouldn’t drive on a sidewalk; you can’t back up into oncoming traffic without getting hit; looking both ways before you cross the street is important; etc). Unfortunately, Vijay and I were very wrong.
Alain was passing a truck (very common in this country), and gave the truck too much space so he was on the shoulder. This time was different because the dirt shoulder was turning into a paved shoulder ahead, and the paved road was 4 inches above the dirt shoulder. We all saw it coming, and Mike specifically screamed out “Shit, Look out!” It was too late; we hit the shoulder at 60+ mph, and completely lost control of the vehicle. The car then spun out, and then we rolled the car down the embankment, and landed in a stream.
Just make that clear, we spun out in a 360, then rolled the car so the roof was touching the ground, and ended up in a freakin’ stream, about 10 – 15 ft. below the original road, with the driver doors touching the ground.
After regaining my wits, I saw that I was in a pool of clear liquid and thought we might be in gasoline, but was quite relieved when I realized it was only water. Someone from outside screamed out something in French to which I angrily replied “I don’t speak any f---ing French!” They replied “Is anyone dead?” It’s the first, and hopefully the last, time I will ever hear that.
Mike was starting to get out of the car. Vijay looked okay, but was struggling with his seatbelt because he lost his glasses. Our driver Alain was okay too. It was a miracle, we were all okay. I screamed back “we are all okay.”
This is the most dangerous and massive accident any of us has ever been in, by a large margin. Luckily, all of us were wearing our seatbelts, which definitely saved our lives.
People who were helping us outside were already calling the ambulance because no one believed that in an accident that bad, there were no serious injuries. I unbuckled Vijay’s seatbelt, and we climbed out. After that we started fishing out all our belongings that we could find. My floating computer, Vijay’s submerged computer, my i-pod, a Teva sandal, one shoe, and a couple books (Vijay and Mike yelled at me for spending the time to get them, but for some reason I couldn’t let them go).
Trying to carry the worst of our stuff, we held hands and the locals led us through the 25’ wide stream (where my now 4-oz. shiny fishing lure/i-pod fell into the stream, never to be seen again by human eyes). Eventually, we all got back up to the road and double-checked for injuries: Vijay had a black eye and a bruised arm, Mike had bruise on his leg and he distinctly remembered his thumb nail bending the wrong way (for those of you who were on KWEST Croatia I’m hopeful we can add more to the lost-nail-club ranks!), I had a small cut on my nose, and Alain was completely healthy. We walked away from the worst car accident I’ve ever been in, or for that matter, actually witnessed, without a scratch. For those of you who are wondering what your next car to buy should be, I highly recommend the Mercedes C230 for safety.
The locals started going back to the stream to find our bags. Our bags had been in the trunk, which had essentially exploded, dumping our bags into the stream. Unfortunately for us, most of our bags were floating, so villagers had to hike downstream to find some of them.
Eventually, most of our bags were found and we started to wait for one of our local contacts to arrive and pick us up. We were somewhat worried because many of the villagers were becoming increasingly agitated about our continued dodging of their question as to how much we would compensate them for their help. It wasn’t that we were planning on holding back, they could have all the money on us (their help was worth much more than that), we were just worried that we wouldn’t have enough, and they could get angry. I think I explained at least ten times that we would give everything we had once our contact arrived, because “he would know what to do.”
Eventually Flobert showed up, surveyed the damage, and we gave him our money to distribute to the crowd. As it turns out, we were lucky that we waited, because they were rather upset we didn’t give them more.
Total Damage: black eye; bruised leg; bruised arm; cut nose; four bumped heads; Vijay’s bag of clothes; all of our dress clothes and shoes; Mike’s $1,000 camera; mike’s point-and-shoot-camera; two computers-now-paper-weights; one i-pod-now-future-archeological-find; and one Mercedes Benz.
Alain was passing a truck (very common in this country), and gave the truck too much space so he was on the shoulder. This time was different because the dirt shoulder was turning into a paved shoulder ahead, and the paved road was 4 inches above the dirt shoulder. We all saw it coming, and Mike specifically screamed out “Shit, Look out!” It was too late; we hit the shoulder at 60+ mph, and completely lost control of the vehicle. The car then spun out, and then we rolled the car down the embankment, and landed in a stream.
Just make that clear, we spun out in a 360, then rolled the car so the roof was touching the ground, and ended up in a freakin’ stream, about 10 – 15 ft. below the original road, with the driver doors touching the ground.
After regaining my wits, I saw that I was in a pool of clear liquid and thought we might be in gasoline, but was quite relieved when I realized it was only water. Someone from outside screamed out something in French to which I angrily replied “I don’t speak any f---ing French!” They replied “Is anyone dead?” It’s the first, and hopefully the last, time I will ever hear that.
Mike was starting to get out of the car. Vijay looked okay, but was struggling with his seatbelt because he lost his glasses. Our driver Alain was okay too. It was a miracle, we were all okay. I screamed back “we are all okay.”
This is the most dangerous and massive accident any of us has ever been in, by a large margin. Luckily, all of us were wearing our seatbelts, which definitely saved our lives.People who were helping us outside were already calling the ambulance because no one believed that in an accident that bad, there were no serious injuries. I unbuckled Vijay’s seatbelt, and we climbed out. After that we started fishing out all our belongings that we could find. My floating computer, Vijay’s submerged computer, my i-pod, a Teva sandal, one shoe, and a couple books (Vijay and Mike yelled at me for spending the time to get them, but for some reason I couldn’t let them go).
Trying to carry the worst of our stuff, we held hands and the locals led us through the 25’ wide stream (where my now 4-oz. shiny fishing lure/i-pod fell into the stream, never to be seen again by human eyes). Eventually, we all got back up to the road and double-checked for injuries: Vijay had a black eye and a bruised arm, Mike had bruise on his leg and he distinctly remembered his thumb nail bending the wrong way (for those of you who were on KWEST Croatia I’m hopeful we can add more to the lost-nail-club ranks!), I had a small cut on my nose, and Alain was completely healthy. We walked away from the worst car accident I’ve ever been in, or for that matter, actually witnessed, without a scratch. For those of you who are wondering what your next car to buy should be, I highly recommend the Mercedes C230 for safety.
The locals started going back to the stream to find our bags. Our bags had been in the trunk, which had essentially exploded, dumping our bags into the stream. Unfortunately for us, most of our bags were floating, so villagers had to hike downstream to find some of them.
Eventually, most of our bags were found and we started to wait for one of our local contacts to arrive and pick us up. We were somewhat worried because many of the villagers were becoming increasingly agitated about our continued dodging of their question as to how much we would compensate them for their help. It wasn’t that we were planning on holding back, they could have all the money on us (their help was worth much more than that), we were just worried that we wouldn’t have enough, and they could get angry. I think I explained at least ten times that we would give everything we had once our contact arrived, because “he would know what to do.”Eventually Flobert showed up, surveyed the damage, and we gave him our money to distribute to the crowd. As it turns out, we were lucky that we waited, because they were rather upset we didn’t give them more.
Total Damage: black eye; bruised leg; bruised arm; cut nose; four bumped heads; Vijay’s bag of clothes; all of our dress clothes and shoes; Mike’s $1,000 camera; mike’s point-and-shoot-camera; two computers-now-paper-weights; one i-pod-now-future-archeological-find; and one Mercedes Benz.
2 comments:
Guy's glad to hear you are ok
Holy shit! Thats crazy. I'm glad that you guys are ok.
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