Working through something I'm still in the heat of, so this thread may sprawl. On the way home from seeing friends tonight, a car about five seconds ahead of me on the freeway fishtailed wildly, spun all the way across six(?) lanes, and slammed rear first into the middle divider. - ThreadSky

nthurkettle.bsky.social • 29 days ago

Working through something I'm still in the heat of, so this thread may sprawl. On the way home from seeing friends tonight, a car about five seconds ahead of me on the freeway fishtailed wildly, spun all the way across six(?) lanes, and slammed rear first into the middle divider.

Comments

nthurkettle.bsky.social•29 days ago

They ended up facing sideways across the carpool lane. Traffic wasn't crowded but plenty of people were going 80mph. Without even thinking, I popped on my hazards and worked my way over to the far side of the accident, with their car between traffic and myself. I took a deep breath and hopped out.

nthurkettle.bsky.social•29 days ago

My nerves were screaming because even though there was no way for a car to hit me without going through the damaged car first, being on a California freeway without a car around me is forking terrifying. I ran up to the car, knocked on the window, no answer. So I grabbed for the door.

nthurkettle.bsky.social•29 days ago

Can't believe in my state of mind I remembered how those stupid Tesla flush door handles worked, but I pulled it open. All the airbags were deployed. The driver responded to me, said she was okay and the passengers were okay. She was on the phone to 911 but was too much in shock to give directions.

nthurkettle.bsky.social•29 days ago

She was really frightened of another car plowing into her, but her lights were still on and other people had pulled over at the far side of the freeway so there was enough information that hopefully people were already more careful. She put 911 on speaker and I provided the accident location.

nthurkettle.bsky.social•29 days ago

After that, with everyone okay, I told them to breathe and realized that the best thing I could do was get out of the way so first responders could get in, so I got back in my car, took a deep breath, and floored it to get back into the flow of freeway traffic. That's when the adrenaline hit.

nthurkettle.bsky.social•29 days ago

I called Claire, it was 1am for her but, as she always promised, she woke up and took the call. I was not in good shape to still be driving on a freeway, shock was setting in for me and I was shaking and sweating, but she stayed on until I was in my driveway and all the stress could break through.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply