It was 30 years ago today …
Exactly 30 years. It was my first December in Los Angeles, and I had just celebrated my 41st birthday the day before.I had been staying with my friend Mick my first few months in Southern California, but it late November I had found an apartment in Anaheim and I was ready to move in.
I had a small car — a two-seater Pontiac Fiero — and I was heading south on I-110 and then I-10 through East Los Angeles with Mick following behind in his station wagon.
I was just below the E and the H on the map, merging onto I-5 heading south toward Orange County and the midday traffic was heavy. As I merged into the second lane from the right on I-5, I didn’t realize that an 18-wheeler already on I-5 was coming up fast behind me in hopes of occupying the space I was already in.
The strangest minute or so of my life was beginning.
The right side of the semi started scraping and pushing against the left side of my coupe. For a few seconds, the two vehicles moved along together, but then the truck pushed me off and started me spinning.
Believe it or not, I had absolutely no fear. The only thought that went through my mind was wondering how many vehicles would hit me before I came to a stop.
Just one more, but it was a big one.
Another 18-wheeler. This one was in the right lane, and my momentum in what turned out to be a 540-degree spin sent me underneath the middle part of the trailer. The left rear tires hit the passenger side of my car and started to go up and over, which would have killed me for certain if it had continued.
But by the grace of God — or maybe just dumb luck — momentum spit me out and I wound up slamming into the guard rail on the right shoulder.
I came to a complete stop, and the first thing I saw was that the right seat in my two-seater had been squashed completely. The roof and pushed against the seat. Anyone in that seat would have been not only dead but squashed. My desktop computer that had been on the seat no longer existed.
Then, totally illogically, I looked to my left, opened the intact door, and stepped out of my car.
Ny friend driving behind me had seen the whole thing. He stopped on the shoulder a hundred yards down the road and was running back shouting that no one should move me.
“Why not?” I asked him when he got there.
He was pleasantly stunned to see me not only alive but walking around. I was pretty pleased with that too.
“I thought you were dead,” he said.
For some reason, the exchange from “Blazing Saddles” came to mind.
“They said you was hung.”
“And they was right.”
When the CHP officer arrived and looked at what used to be my car, she told me I was very lucky to be alive.
I knew she was right. If you look at the way the accident had developed, it was far more likely that the rear wheels of the second truck would have passed completely over my car and crushed me completely than what actually happened.
I hadn’t escaped completely unscathed. The left side of my body had slammed against the door, and I hard a truly ugly bruise that covered the outside of my left leg from waist down to knee. I also had a slightly dislocated pelvis and needed three or four months with a chiropractor to fix it.
My friend suffered almost as badly. As I said, he saw the whole thing and had several months of nightmares about it. I had one dream about it that wasn’t all that frightening. That same night, I dreamed I was dead. Actually, I dreamed I had become a ghost.
The only other time I dreamed I was dead was about 20 years later. I dreamed I died in a nuclear war, with my body disintegrating. I showed up on line to get into heaven and my late father was there to help me check in.
My accident hasn’t been one of the type that never leaves your memory. I think those are reserved for severed limbs or lots of blood.
I was lucky. I walked away, and right around Dec. 12 each year is pretty much the only time I think about it.
And best of all, I didn’t even have a brain cloud.