A friend of mine called me this week to remind me of an occurrence in my life that was less than pleasurable. He had seen a video of a horrible auto accident that was identical to one that I was in back in 1994. The first time I thought that I might not be there for Nick. He was barely a newborn and the first time we left him with our In-laws. Our friends Roseanne and Khourosh were having an engagement party in Boston on a Saturday afternoon. The plan was to leave Nick at my In-laws home in the Bronx and fly local to Boston with Lors friends. Wasn’t happening. It was supposed to be bad weather in Boston so we bagged that idea and decided to drive. Michelle and Ed, our friends from Florida,via New York, would drive up with us. About a 4 hour trip. Lor and I gave Nick a big hug and kiss and left him alone for the first time since he was born, to stay overnight in the Bronx. A couple tears for sure. Nonno and Nonna were in heaven! We loaded up our new Isuzu Rodeo, buckled up and went on our way.
I was driving this morning, Lor was my copilot, Michelle behind Lor and Ed behind me. Traffic is always crazy in New York and you have to be on top of your game…always. Our route would take us all the way up I95 North crossing through New York into Connecticut and straight to the Mass Highway towards Boston. Simple enough. It was a bright day, good visibility and traffic was moving at a pretty fast clip…around 70 mph. I was driving in the inside lane of the three lane highway doing about 70 mph skirting the concrete barrier separating the highway and noting that we were 2 miles from the Greenwich CT. Exit. The road was curving to the left and in one instant Michelle screamed “look out”!! And pointed to the oncoming traffic. With nowhere to go and about one half second to react, I screamed for Lor to duck! I slammed the brakes! At that moment, the missile that was a full wheel and tire, coming from the southbound lane, launched off the median, impacted the hood, windshield and roof beam like a nuclear missile. It was like a huge explosion from a bomb. It bounced off the center of the hood, into the windshield and the the center of the roof. The impact had crushed the center of the roof down into the center console between Lor and I in one violent second. The left side of the roof hit me in the head as I tried to steer safely towards the guardrail concrete barrier. All at seventy miles an hour.
When the action stopped. Michelle was screaming, having an anxiety attack. We couldn’t see Lori. She was beneath the majority of the crushed roof. I ran outside the car and ripped open the passenger door. The whole roof was literally halfway below the door frames. I found her in a cocoon like position. Curled up safe in a ball of steel that was the dashboard, Roof and doorframe. I grabbed her to see if she was ok. She was in shock and reciting the Lords prayer. Luckily, she was wearing sunglasses. They were impaled with shards of windshield glass as well as her face, arms, chest and legs. There was so much traffic that day. It was backed up for miles as ambulances needed to get through to us. We were fortunate to have had two EMS workers behind us to help right away. Michelle needed oxygen as she became hysterical when she saw Lor. I left my wife to the EMS workers and went to assess the damage to the truck. As I was leaning on the concrete meridian, I looked at the vehicle and couldn’t believe that we were alive. An older gentleman came up to me and handed me some Dunking Donuts napkins. Apparently I had a pretty good gash on my head where the roof had hit me during the impact. Hadn’t noticed the blood. The gentleman gave me some play by play as he was driving along side of us. “That was the best Fuc#@%g driving I have ever seen” he said. I had only a very small section in the left bottom of the windshield to see through and just skidded as close to the median at 70 mph as I could. The girls were loaded into one ambulance and rushed to the Greenwich hospital ER. Ed and I followed soon after. The Isuzu would be towed to a local body shop.
We got to the hospital and were examined for a minute. Got a head bandage and left to find my wife right away! In a few minutes I heard her voice from behind a curtain. Thank God. She was ok. The doctors were removing pieces of glass from all parts of her body. I felt so bad. Michelle called her father to pick us up, he was the closest, and we went to the truck to get our overnight bags and head back to the Bronx. It was a sobering vision to see the condition of the truck. And scary. The girls were in pretty tough shape too. I felt so bad. When we walked into Lors house her parents were in shock too,I think. We looked like we were in a war. Bloody ripped clothes. Bruised and bandaged. I just wanted to hug my baby boy. I couldnt let him go. This was so close. Too close.
Lori came to me and said “We still have time to make it”. Are you shitten me? She was still in shock. But this was her best friend’s engagement party. And I almost lost her. Lets goo! Anything you want honey. We piled into my In-laws car and headed back the same way we just came from. Four hours later we walked into the hotel lobby like a bunch of zombies. I couldnt wait to wash the blood off of me. We were a sight.
And we had a wonderful time.
On a side note…the wheel that hit us bounced over 4 lanes of traffic into the woods. The troopers said that they usually were calling the morgue on these types of accidents and a very apologetic Hispanic gentleman asked to speak with me. He had a very old van that just had tires put on it. He said the wheel started to rattle and eventually flew off. His vehicle continued along I95 until the momentum slowed and his van fell to the ground. The Troopers found him a quater mile down the road and he asked to go to the hospital to apologize and see how we were doing. He had no insurance.
We made it back home in one piece the next day. We had to borrow my mother in laws car to drive to Philly and it took forever to get our car back. It should have been totaled. Just another terrible memory that lingered into the future only to be trumped two years later. Nine lives…yep. Thank God my wife had an Ah Hah moment and made us get life insurance right after. It became the only life insurance that I could ever get again. She was right. Thanks Lor.
Next Up: DLI TIME