Time Travel Tuesday~Accident

This week Annie ask us to share about the worst accident or illness we have experienced!

Sitting here thinking about this topic made me realize just how very blessed I am. I have not suffered much illness in my life, and I certainly have not been accident prone. I suppose the most memorable event that comes to mind is my first and ONLY car accident. It really isn't the worst thing to happen to me health wise, but it is the most interesting, and a very good lesson learned. If you know me at all, you know that I appreciate a good lesson.

A few weeks before our wedding, hubby bought me a special present. My first CAR! :) It was a 1987 fire red Camero. Yowza.....did he know how to make a girl smile or what? I felt simply saucy in that thing. I loved driving it. It was my baby....and I took good care of it. It wasn't new (obviously). In fact it was 9 years old, but it was new to me and in great condition. Well...at least I thought it was.

One day, three months later, I was running late to meet my mother for a luncheon we were attending. I ran out the door of my house, and jumped in the Camero. I went to buckle my seat belt like I ALWAYS did, and it made a strange sound, and a spring sprung out of the buckle and it was BROKE BROKE BROKE.....sigh! What was a girl to do? I was late. Hubby was out at sea working.....and I had no other vehicle available. So for the first time in my life, I took off down the road with no seat belt on.

I was about 40 minutes into my drive when I reached a passing lane. I had been in a line of cars waiting to pass a very slow moving vehicle. Into the fast lane we went, soon we were all going at least 60 mph. Suddenly out of nowhere the slow moving car, who was going around 30 mph swerved into the fast lane in front of the pickup truck which was directly in front of me. We all slammed on our brakes. I distinctively remember the panic in my body. I remember the sound of the brakes screeching. I remember the pure relief when I was able to stop my car with inches to spare between the pickup's bumper and my hood. The slow moving vehicle swerved back into his lane and we started to move forward again. I felt so relieved.

It was then that I heard an awful sound....it was screeching tires....but how could that be? We were starting to go forward again....I glanced in my rear view mirror just as a small pickup slammed into the rear of my car. The jolt was horrifying...the sound was terrifying....and the pure fear was paralyzing. As my hatch back window, which had been popped out of my car and up into the air crashed back down on my car sending shattered glass everywhere, I realized that I was screaming. Then there was just plain deafening silence. My car limped to the side of the road, and I leapt out running my hands all over my body from head to toe...I was in hysterics. I just could not believe I wasn't hurt. I kept saying, "am I hurt? am I hurt?" a nice young man, told me I looked fine, so I sat back down and began to shake.

I could not believe that I had just been in my first car accident...on the same day I was driving without my seat belt. What are the odds? and how was I not hurt??? Even though I was rear ended with my car going about 10 mph and the other car going at least 55 mph...I was not hurt. I blew my mind. In fact, I was just plain lucky it was a rear ending accident. In a rear ending accident, the person is thrown BACK into their seat, not forward. If I had hit the car in front of me...it would have been a very different story (this was much before airbags). I was so lucky...so blessed. So convinced...to never ride without the seat belt. It just isn't worth it. I came so close to getting seriously hurt. In the end, I had some nasty whiplash, but that was it.