[thegelding]

ok...so there was a car accident...i drive 200 miles down I-40 across New Mexico and into Arizona in the dead of night just to hug my daughter...she is fine, in fact basically not a scratch...a bruise on her elbow, a bruise on her abdomen from the seat belt...but her car is totaled and she had to climb out the passenger window to get to the road and try and flag down help...nobody stops for 15 minutes when a cop comes by...but that is a rant for a different day

she was coming home for spring break...a coyote runs in front of her, she swerves and then swerves back...it is the swerve back that spins her and then sends her up and over...not fun...in fact it hurts my chest to write it now...her thought at the time was just a simple..."i'm dead"...but she is fine and cars can be replaced...her first accident and she doesn't go for a fender bender...

but, and the real reason for this story, she had her new macbook in the trunk...and her truck is trashed...we have to pry it open...and she doesn't turn her macbook off, just puts it to sleep...i am sure it is busted as i get in the trunk...on first look it seems ok...so i open it...still good...and then the screen pops on without me hitting the power button..."JO, you don;t turn your computer off when you travel?" "No, why would i?" "well maybe so it is not running when you flip your freakin car in the middle of the desert in arizona?"

but it started right up, no breaks in the screen nor the case, and it is running fine right now as she sits next to me...

tough little computers...

and her car? well, other than the flipping, it did what it was suppose to do, it gave up it's life for hers...luckily nobody was in the back seat...that would have been bad...

a photo...




now i going back to hugging my kid till she tells me to stop....

g

[Windswept]

Wow, g, that pic is awful.

Thank god for seat belts.

Really glad your daughter is fine.

Hope you will be fine soon too.

[kieran]

Damn. Glad to hear she's alright though.

My mom was in a bad accident where the rear bumper was pushed up almost to the drivers seat. Cars are really remarkable these days. I'm amazed at what people can walk away from.

[Mugge]

Good thing nobody were sitting on the back seat, seeing how the roof has been pressed down right over it.



Lucky girl.

[apple007]

Wow. If you started the thread with the picture, I might not have expected a happy ending. Glad your daughter escaped serious injury.

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by apple007 Wow. If you started the thread with the picture, I might not have expected a happy ending. Glad your daughter escaped serious injury.

Same here. That looks terrible. I'm glad she's okay.

As far as the laptop goes, though... it should be okay to travel with it, as long as it goes to sleep before you start moving around. Once the hard drive heads are parked, it's just as safe asleep as it is turned off.

That said, go take care of your daughter.

[Capella]

Holy crap. That's serious car damage, and I'm very glad your daughter is okay. Car crashes are extremely scary, and that one looks like it was brutal. A few bruises and pains is much better than being dead!

I'm also very surprised that the MacBook survived seemingly-unharmed.

[colivigan]

Really scary stuff, g. It hits home for me, my eldest will be getting his license this year. Thank goodness she came out of it OK.

Tell her next time, just hit the damn coyote.

[digitalprimate]

Just wanted to say that we're glad your daughter is alright.

[Yontsey]

Damn, glad she's ok G.

I had a similar experience 2 years ago in May when I totaled my brand new GMC Envoy. Except I wasn't wearing my seatbelt and went through the windshield.

[Chinney]

Great post g. Give your daughter an extra hug from AN.

And cool about the Mac surviving. Something about that would make me want to keep the laptop for a long time, if only as a little token of the precious life that continued on (and a tribute to good engineering). Good engineering in the Honda too. It did its job.

Now give your daughter another hug.

[thegelding]

thanks chinney and everyone else...

and dang yontsey, are you ok? is it a male thing? all the kids today were raised with seatbelts, yet from the people i've asked, almost all girls wear seatbelts, many many young guys do not..

as for not swerving, believe you me, we told her that...hit the freakin animal next time...

easier said than done, she loves dogs....

we had told her this even before the accident as my wife once swerved to avoid a freakin jackrabbit and almost went over the side of a mountain...400 bucks later for a new front axle and she promised never to try and avoid animals on the road again...perhaps jo has learned the same lesson...i tell her to just aim for whatever tries to cross the road...frogger style driving...

but it is great that she is ok...it's been a long two days (late night drive out there and back, and then again the next day to get all the stuff out of the car when the junk car lot was open...it is all a freakin scene from pulp fiction...crazy desert folks, wild dogs running the lot, a 8 year old kid with a crow bar coming in the shed saying, "grandma, i heard gun shots.")...i drove 800 miles in the last 24 hours...but it could have been soooo much worse...

gawd the phone call was the worse...we know she is coming home...she had called at about 830 to tell us she had stopped for gas and was about to head out on the road again...from where she was we figured she would be home about 1130 or midnight...then an hour later we get a call...my wife answers and almost collapsed...her legs shaking, tears flowing...me, "what, what happened"...she, "i'm being transferred to a state trooper" helplessness in her voice...it is every parents greatest fear....

so jo had her cellphone, but it was in the cup holder...so she flips, the phone goes flying and she can't find it...(it was in the back seat, so she couldn't see it)...she climbs out the passenger window and tries to flag down passing cars...none stop...she goes back to her car and looks for phone again...can;t find it...there is no moon, it is dark, there are no highway lights...she turns on her flashers and runs out to the highway again (her car is about 30 feet off the side of the highway)...still no cars stop...she runs back to get the flashlight from her trunk to look for her phone...but her trunk won't open (we had to crow bar it open the next day)...back to the highway and this time the cop shows up...nobody stopped, but obviously somebody called about her accident...

so she couldn't call us and it was the trooper who called instead...the last thing you want as a parent and your kid is on the highway is to get a call at night from a state trooper...

so we had that insane 30 seconds of just DREAD...and stomack sickening fear until the call went from dispatch saying, "hello? this is the Arizona State Police dispatch, hold on while i transfer you to an officer." to the officer finally saying, "your daughter has been in an accident near the arizona / new mexico border, but she is OK."

how about starting with, "your daughter is ok"

anyways...it was the longest 2 hours plus ride i took to get to her...and it was a long ride back...halfway she was having some nausea and headaches...i'm still in the middle of nowhere and now worried she might have head or internal trauma...i want her to rest, but need to keep checking her to make sure she is lucid...i stop once to get her something to nibble on, but it is past 1 am and everyplace is closed...a few miles later i find a denny's open...we had to look an insane site...older guy with young girl at 1:30 am getting hash browns for her and an ice tea for me...she was a typical college kid coming from tempe, so she is dressed in a tiny tshirt and warm up pants...no other clothes even though it is near freezing at 130 in the high desert...plus you can tell she has been crying and crying hard...nobody is in the denny's except 2 cops getting french toast...and they are staring at me hard...i swear to god even if i had tried to set it up there is little i could have done to make it looked any more like i was a guy who had abducted this college student. it was strange...i was thinking, great, now i'm getting arrested for kidnapping, just what i need tonight...but they got a call and had to leave just as their french toast was being delivered...so the denny's guy gave us their french toast along with the hash browns and ice tea...



all in all, it sucks somedays to be a parent


luckily, most days are just the opposite...




she is now no longer allowed to travel from tempe to albuquerque at night...


g

[Chinney]

That account made me feel that I was almost there. Thank you, g.

it is every parents greatest fear..

Yes. I have certainly thought about it. And so now it's official. My daughters and my son are now allowed to get their driver's licenses when they turn 40.

it was the trooper who called instead...the last thing you want as a parent and your kid is on the highway is to get a call at night from a state trooper...

That comment made me think back to being a teenager and listening to this song on the The River by Springsteen:

Wreck On The Highway

Even as a teenager, trying to be tough like most guys were, and unfortunately not holding anything particularly precious at that stage of my life, that song always got to me. It still makes me tear up. "...a state trooper knocking in the middle of the night / To say your baby died in a wreck on the highway"

I am thankful that was not what the state trooper called to tell you.

[julesstoop]

Don't know what to say, but I'll try. Though I don't have kids, I understand, because I do have parents
To put it simply: so glad she's okay!

[billybobsky]

i am very glad to hear that your daughter is ok, g.

as an aside, I have a friend who is a professor in the chemistry department at ASU (her husband is a lecturer in the history department)...

[MBHockey]

That picture is really scary. It's so nice to hear that she is okay and that the civic took all the damage. just awesome.

[psmith2.0]

Wow, what a story. Yes, hug her until she hits you with an umbrella and tells you to knock it off already...that's your job (and she'll look back, years later, and be glad you did).



Glad she was okay.

She had her belt on, no passengers in the back seat. Except for the car, which is just a replaceable "thing", this turned out so much better than it could've. As I'm sure you're more than aware.



On a slightly more "up" note, I feel sorry for the next coyote that wanders into her path while she's driving. Something tells me he won't get the same consideration as his cousin. Poor guy's toast...

[tsa]

What a horrible story, it brought tears to my eyes. OTOH, it's amazing how good cars are these days. Ten years ago she probably wouldn't have survived the crash without serious injury.

[Mac+]

g - so glad to hear that your daughter is alright. That photo was sickening to see and it is certainly something I hope I'm never confronted with. It must be a tremendous relief to hold her in your arms.

[SKMDC]

I'm going to be up all night now with parental anxiety, I wish I could keep them the ages they are now forever.
Glad your daughter is okay.

I'm going to go watch them sleep.

[admactanium]

wow. incredible that she came out of it unharmed. knowing that she was not hurt in the crash, i can point out the irony in your picture showing the dealer badging of "perfection honda".

[tsa]

Originally Posted by admactanium wow. incredible that she came out of it unharmed. knowing that she was not hurt in the crash, i can point out the irony in your picture showing the dealer badging of "perfection honda".

Well, it DID work perfectly didn't it? It destroyed itself in the process, but that was a small price to pay for keeping the MacBook in perfect order. (Ducks and runs...)

[Partial]

Wow, she fucked that car up but good.

Very glad is she is ok. Scary, scary stuff. Let's hope she never has a similar incident again.

[Dorian Gray]

That is a pretty terrifying photo, g. Thank goodness there was no-one in the back seat. Or the front passenger seat, for that matter. In fact, it looks like the driver's location is the only one that emerged relatively intact. I am amazed that the roof has collapsed so heavily. Perhaps the car was momentarily airborne before landing on its roof, judging by the severity of the damage? Horrific.

But this method of losing control could happen to almost anyone, especially when driving a strange car. I once entered a very tight corner too fast, on a wet road, in a Ford Mondeo saloon. I'd only been driving it for about a week and I had no idea what its limits were. Turns out they were very low. I could feel things getting out of hand, and I consciously thought, "I know taking my foot off the accelerator will suddenly transfer weight to the front, probably causing oversteer, but I'd rather lose control and hit the barrier slow, than plough on and ultimately lose control at a higher speed".

So I took my foot off the pedal, and the car predictably oversteered. But then I changed my mind about "deliberately" crashing at slow speed, and attempted to drive through the corner! This complex sequence of inputs caused the vehicle to enter a vicious left-and-right oscillation that increased in amplitude no matter what I did. It felt like a giant's hand was dragging the car back and forth; I later guessed some part of the suspension system must have encountered the natural frequency of its harmonic motion. I was only doing about 30 mph but I was slewing crazily back and forth across both lanes for at least 100 metres/yards. If anyone had been in the incoming lane we would almost certainly have crashed. But there wasn't anyone in the other lane, and instead I parked on the side of the road and sat there shaking like a leaf for five minutes.

Another time I was in the passenger seat when my mother lost control on black ice and crashed head-first into a tree. It took my mother a couple of years to overcome her subsequent fear of driving, and she still complains about getting sore shoulders when she drives, due to tension. Maybe you should encourage your daughter to drive again soon, even if it feels like a crazy idea now, to minimise any future fear of driving.

[jcoley2]

When I see photos like that, it reminds me to make sure and buy cars with at least four star ratings for my kids. That is a horrible accident and I am glad everyone came out ok.

[BuonRotto]

Amazing actually how people can just walk away from stuff ike that. I was a witness to what looked like a deadly crash, but the two guys in the car jumped right out. One had a sprained wrist. I'm very happy and thankful that your daughter is fine. I hope you are (or will be soon) too.

[Schnauzer]

Glad to hear that your daughter is alright! That looks like a nasty crash.

[Brad]

Geez, man. I'll throw my voice out into the chorus of "I'm glad your kid's okay!" That looks/sounds terrible.

[sirnick4]

I'm glad that your daughter is okay, g.

**positive vibes going towards your family**

[alcimedes]

Good lord that must have been an interesting few moments. How is your daughter feeling now? (and I'm glad she walked away from that!)