AskLemmy

Ignoring a road rage incident, it was a crash.

Me, my sister, and a friend were heading home with my mom driving back in my early high school days.

The route went through a country highway; basically just an extra wide two lane road. It was at night, and either my mom didn't see the lights on the car, or they were off. I didn't see lights, and right before the car hit the van immediately behind me, I did see the car, but not lights. Blinking yellow light at the intersection

Anyway, the car was doing well over the speed limit. Rough estimate at the time of collision was around 60, with the car not having braked until absurdly close.

The van roatated at least three times, then rolled on the second or third and kept rolling while rotating. We ended up on the side of the van maybe fifty or sixty yards down the road.

Everyone in the van was cut to some degree or another. Glass went everywhere, and even safety glass will do that. We were also all bruised up pretty heavily.

But that was it in terms of injury. Some sore and achy necks and backs, and everything hurt bad enough the next day none of us really got out of bed except to pee. But nothing broken, no major damage beyond bruising where seat belts dug in hard. Those bruises were still there maybe two or three weeks later.

The van was demolished. The side that got hit was crushed in a good third of the width of the van. Part of the roof was peeled back and it was crushed down a little as well.

Every now and then I drive past where it happened, and I'm amazed nobody was hurt worse. Even the people in the car were fine beyond bruises and general impact pain.

Like, that van had to have looked like something out of a movie spinning and rolling down the road. The crash woke up the couple that lived roughly at the point where our van stopped. It was maybe three feet from the rear bumper to their mailbox. But their house was set back a decent ways from the road, so that shit had to be loud.

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.