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This all happened in March 1995.
I promised friends and family I would chronicle my story in great detail once I could
bring my pictures to vivid life on my web page. Here, today, I present my saga in a most
timely manner.
It was a bright sunny morning in Durham, North Carolina when I woke up
that day. I was late, as usual, for work. So I hopped in the 1993 Saturn SL1 and headed up
I-85 for the 28-mile journey to Oxford, from Mile Marker 176 (Duke Street) to 202 (U.S.
15, Oxford).
In the past six years there have numerous fatal accidents in the construction zone
between Durham and Henderson. I-85, as long as I worked in North Carolina, has been under
construction in various places, usually backing up traffic. The state tree ought to be the
Orange Barrel.
This particular spring day was no different. Barrels were set up from M.M. 180 to 182,
closing the right lane, after which the construction company (REA Construction) was
working on the median, paving a crossover lane so they could detour all northbound traffic
to the southbound lanes and close the northbound side to repave it. So I traveled through
the usual sea of orange in one lane, behind a white sedan and a couple of slow-moving
vehicles, for two miles. When the barrels ended, the white sedan and I stayed left, and
passed another car, and a pickup truck towing a backhoe. Yes, that's important.
On the right shoulder, near Exit 183, sat a REA Construction truck, presumably parked.
It was one of those steel-flatbed trucks, with the flatbed at, well, about eye level if
you're sitting in a Saturn SL1 and you're six-foot-two. Across at the median, the
guardrail separating North from South had been removed and a section of the grass had been
paved over. Other REA trucks were scattered along the inner shoulders. So I guess it was
natural that the truck on the right shoulder wanted to be with his friends in the center
of the highway.
I just wish he could have waited until the traffic passed before crossing the street.
My parents taught me to look both ways. Whatever his reasons, the driver simply
turned left, across two lanes of 55 MPH-plus traffic, in order to park on the median. The
little problem was those of us in the two lanes of 55 MPH-plus traffic.
(As an aside, realize that I now had hundreds of thoughts going through my head at
once. Things really seemed to be happening in slow motion. If you've ever had the luck to
be involved in a situation such as this, where you know full well that damage will be
occurring and you will be in the middle of it, you understand the events that follow were
made clearer after some reflection on my part.)
The white sedan ahead of me was, oh, about 40 or 50 feet from the truck, now spanning
both traffic lanes and part of the shoulder from which he came. The truck and the sedan
still moving. I was a few car lengths behind -- and both of us were traveling about 60
when I figured out what was going on.
The sedan decided to try his luck by veering left. Not good luck. I saw from the corner
of my eye as he was broadsided by the truck and bounced into the newly-paved median area
-- but apparently not into the southbound lanes, at least. Since Mr. White tried left, I
figured I'd go right. No sense in both of us getting hit, or in my admitting that no, I
couldn't possibly avoid the behemoth. No, I had to try to make it to the guardrail and
hopefully avoid major damage to my car or my person.
While I slammed on my brakes and turned hard to the right, I found myself yelling every
profanity I could think of; for those three seconds I was directing rather evil thoughts
at the REA Construction truck driver. As is obvious, I didn't make it around the truck. I
slammed headlong into the side of the platform bed, a two-inch slab of steel crashing
through my windshield, stopping roughly six inches from my forehead. I still believe if I
had been driving faster, or driving a different car, at that instant I would have at least
been unconscious, but more likely either have a fractured skull or be lacking a head
entirely.
What I remember most vividly is the steel bed joining me in the driver's seat for a
visit. Next most vividly, at that moment, would be the colossal shower of glass from the
front-seat windows -- the windshield didn't shatter, of course, merely folding under the
steel. And of course, the several-inch gap between my roof and the windshield supports.
After my car had come to a rest, somewhat under the truck, I remember having a nagging
feeling for a merest fraction of a second, that there must have been cars behind us; what
happened to them? And that backhoe.... Actually, I didn't get the whole thought through my
head, before I was jolted with a tremendous crash to my trunk.
Yup. The truck, carrying the backhoe -- five tons of fun, couldn't stop either, and had
also chosen to stay to the right. The accident report stated that he thought he hit me at
5 MPH; look at the pictures and see if you believe that. The pickup plowed into the trunk,
driving it forward into the back seat. On impact, my seat collapsed, fortunately, into the
back seat. The back window and both back passenger windows shattered into the back seat.
From the time I saw the REA Construction truck pull across the interstate, to the
moment my car was propelled away from the truck's steel bed into the guard rail, coming to
a stop on the right shoulder slightly past the original location of the construction
truck, about 7 seconds elapsed.
Now that everything seemed to be over, I had time to assess my situation. The radio was
still on; WRDU (106.1 FM) was in the middle of a bad comedy bit with Mark Patrick of
Indianapolis, imitating Judge Lance Ito very poorly. Yes, I remember that. The car's
engine had apparently stalled. I was pretty much covered in glass, and looking up at a
sunny sky, now that my roof had been peeled back to the back seat. And I did a body part
check. Everyone seemed to be working all right, and there weren't any large pools of
blood. I considered that a pretty good sign.
The driver of the white car, and the backhoe-towing guy came over, apparently to see if
I was conscious, I learned. I flailed a bit when I hit the truck, so Backhoe Boy thought
maybe I was hurt pretty badly. They opened the door from the outside after I unlocked it.
Oddly, my airbag never deployed. I learned later that the sensor on the 1993 Saturn was
around the radiator grill. The front end didn't get hit, so no airbag. I guess it wouldn't
have helped anyhow.
So, I extricate myself from the large quantities of broken glass on my person, and
stand up. After thanking my new friends, I set about trying to find the mental giant
driving the construction truck. I later learned he was avoiding all the other accident
participants, for obvious reasons. I'd never walked on the highway before, but I don't
recommend you try it.
We did manage to completely snarl traffic northbound, until the crossover lane was
cleared a bit and people could sneak around the carnage to the left. We hadn't moved any
vehicles, waiting for the police, who came rather quickly, with a couple of tow trucks and
a paramedic unit.
When the paramedics arrived, they took a look at my car, on whose hood I was sitting,
and asked if the driver of the vehicle had been taken already. I nonchalantly said I was
driving. She blinked, and asked me to come with her to the unit for cleaning up. They
picked out the few pieces of glass remaining in my forearms, asked if anything else hurt,
and figured their work was done.
A police officer, writing out the reports, remarked that I probably shouldn't bother
hanging around after I filled mine out, since the REA Construction driver couldn't write
or read. Hoo boy. So I gathered all the belongings from my car, now tied down to a tow
truck, and headed for the Saturn of Chapel Hill, since I now needed a new car.
During the drive to Chapel Hill, the expressions on people's faces in their cars as
they passed the tow truck were priceless. Often they were looking over in horror, until
they saw me sitting in front kinda looking goofy.
We pulled into the Saturn parking lot. I jumped out, thanked the driver, and walked to
the desk area of Martha, who had sold me that Saturn. I told her I'd been in an accident,
and I thought maybe I'd like a new Saturn. She looked at me, then looked out the window at
the tow truck, gleaming hunk of grey plastic still attached to the bed. "When that
truck pulled in, I thought it was a fatality!" she exclaimed. I assured her I was,
indeed, the former driver of the vehicle, and we got the necessary paperwork together.
Martha explained just how lucky I was to be in one piece. It seems that although the
Saturn is designed to keep the car occupants safe in an accident, the windshield frame was
not designed nearly as strong as the rest of the car. So it was not by design that I
didn't get conked on the head by a truck. She decided we needed a picture of the car and
me for the showroom, to stick on the showroom model they use to explain things to
customers, and gave me a picture for posterity as well. For a couple of years afterward,
people would come up to me in stores and bars and tell me they'd seen my picture on that
Saturn. I thought that was pretty cool.
The pictures at the top of the page were taken after I went home in my rental car to
get my camera. A service mechanic near the back lot shook my hand when I told him my (much
shorter version of this) story, and took a picture of me with the car, which I haven't
scanned in. I invited a friend who lived nearby to come see what I'd done. And I called my
girlfriend (now my wife) who broke down on the phone and convinced me to check into the
Emergency Room just in case. I fell asleep there for an hour while waiting for them to
check on me, but they must not have thought I had lapsed into a coma or died, because they
didn't wake me up.
Three weeks later, I owned a 1995 dark green Saturn SL1. The REA insurance company gave
me full value for the old car, plus an extra sum of money for my trouble. I probably could
have sued them with a personal injury lawyer, but I didn't feel the need to litigate and
be a dickhead in court. I didn't miss any paychecks and my pain and suffering was
honestly minimal. I did like the 1993 model better than the 1995 in some ways, but you
don't complain when you're still alive and the insurance companies admit their fault and
settle things quickly.
So when you're shopping for a new car for your kids, do what Jenny's parents did for
her sister: buy your kid a Saturn, and tell them my little story persuaded you.
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