AskLemmy

When I was 15, I was hanging out at a friend’s place. We all decided to hop in one guys car and go somewhere. We locked out the last guy to get to the car for a quick laugh, but he jumped on side of the car and hung on to the roof rack. The driver starts rolling on idle torque and the guy outside says “go!” so the driver picks it up to like 10mph.

I said, “wait that looks fun! lemme get on the other side.” So we’re slowly cruising down the street, me and the other guy hanging off the sides of the car are hollering, then I see another car coming. Like the anxious fool I was (and am) I start worrying they’ll call the cops if they see us. I look through the driver side window and see we’re only going 10mph, I think that’s not too fast, I can run way faster than that.

What I failed to consider was if I could land at 10mph. I jumped off and immediately fell and got knocked out. I woke up to my friends dragging me into the car and I said I had a headache and asked to be taken home. When I get home, I tell my dad I hit my head and I’m going to sleep. He tells me to sleep on the couch and if I can’t, we’re going to the hospital. We ultimately went to the hospital.

Well it turns out I had a double hematoma and several skull fractures and my skull was filling with blood and had I managed to sleep, I wouldn’t have woken up.

Now I’m anosmic (no sense of smell), but for 3 months I couldn’t taste or smell. I had seizures for 2 years (so I can’t donate bone marrow, despite being a match for someone years later), I lost almost all of my memories up to that point, had to relearn how to talk, went through an almost complete personality change, lost the ability to remember faces and recognize myself in photos, I have occasional auditory hallucinations, and probably more. That one stupid night drastically changed my life.