(from her first book "My Short Stories (Book One)", published in March 2011)
Have you ever
experienced an event that had a one-in-a-million chance of occurring? Did you ever think that, due to some
incredibly lucky coincidence, you are still alive, walking the Earth? Well, this kind of “freak” accident happened
to me on April 14, 2000 on my way home from work. It was one of those “freak” accidents that
you think will never happen to you, but it did happen to me.
At the time, I
had been working at a local high school as an LTO (Long Term Occasional)
teacher of Computer Science. Just three
weeks prior to this teaching assignment, I had been laid off permanently from
the Royal Bank, Systems and Technology department, where I’d been working as a
programmer/ analyst and technical systems analyst, in two different positions
for the last 2-3 years. It wasn’t that
I’d wanted to go right back to work again after the layoff; it was just that
I’d gotten a job offer that was too hard to refuse. The reason that it was so hard to refuse was
that I knew by that time the path that my career should take.
Teaching was
something that I had wanted to do for a very long time, mostly since the
beginning of the 1990’s, when I’d graduated from Seneca College as a computer
programmer. While I’d been studying at
Seneca (and getting the best college education that money could buy), I
inadvertently discovered that I had an affinity for computers. That is, I had a lot of ability when it came
to computing. And, it couldn’t have
happened at a better time. Personal
Computers, Windows, and the Internet were all becoming very popular. At almost the same time, I also discovered
that I wanted to teach computer programming (to whom though, I did not know,
yet).
After finding
these things out, I told all my professors (and anyone else who would listen)
that I wanted to teach Computers, but I needed help to get where I wanted to
go. But, you know that old saying: “Beware of what you wish for – you just might
get it!” That old saying is far truer
than one would think because, finally, I did get what I wanted. Not right away though, of course.
From the time I
graduated from Seneca College (early in 1996) till the time my LTO assignment
began, three years had elapsed. After
all, I did have to put in some professional time on the job first. It sure wasn’t exciting work, but it was good
work experience. Also, I did some
part-time night school teaching for my alma mater, Seneca College. And, that was good work experience too in the
teaching realm. Well, enough said about
my background; I’m only telling you this stuff so you’ll understand how I came
to work as an LTO in a high school.
While doing this
LTO assignment, I quickly came to realize that I was really happy in a teaching
role in a high school and I wanted to do a good job of it. I worked very hard at my lessons because I
wanted very much for my students to do well.
I reasoned that, if they did well, then so would I. There was only one problem – I was obliged by
law to obtain a Computer Science teaching credential in order to get hired on
full-time as a Computer Science teacher by the school board. Even though I did already have a basic
teaching certificate, I did not have the specific subject qualification that
was required, as well. And, that would
not happen until July 2000, at the earliest.
On the day of my
accident, I had been working for the last week on completing my students’
report cards. At the time, report cards
still had to be completed manually. It
was a lot of work! But, I got them done
on time and I was rather proud of myself for having done so. On the Friday afternoon, after a particularly
demanding week at school, I was driving home.
I was tired, but was doing my best to fight off fatigue. I had borrowed my friend’s car for a few
weeks because he had offered it to me and because I thought it would help me to
drive back and forth to work. The drive
home only took about half an hour and I thought it would be easier to just keep
driving. It was a hot day for April and
I had the driver window rolled right down, but the heat was still fairly
oppressive. My radio wasn’t working or I
would’ve turned it on and the volume up.
For some reason (that I’ve never been able to figure out to this day), I
thought that I’d make it home without any problem. It would’ve been easier, on later reflection,
to just stop somewhere for a short time and grab a coffee, but I didn’t. Two minutes from home, disaster struck.
I actually
passed out at the wheel of the car and drove right off the road! The really freaky part of this was that it
was a farmer’s field into which I’d driven.
It could so easily have been a ditch or a cliff or a hydro pole. While in the farmer’s field, I was suddenly
jerked awake by the car’s movement over the rough terrain, but it was still
moving at close to 60 kph! At that
moment, I knew that I was very likely to hit something – a house or a tree –
or, worse, someone – and that absolutely terrified me! I was positive that my life was now being
measured in seconds. I was going to be
very lucky if I lived, or didn’t kill someone, or both. But, I guess that day in April 2000, God (or
some higher power) was looking out for me; I didn’t die and I didn’t kill
anyone. What I did do is to hit another
car head-on! How did I do that?!
The other driver
(a woman, as it turned out) was also on the road driving at 60 kph in the
opposite direction from me. In my
infinite wisdom, I had somehow managed to steer my car back onto the road,
still at full speed, and then lost control of my vehicle and hit her’s! My own injuries included a broken right ankle
and right hand, and a deep slash to my left knee. I later found out that she had multiple
injuries, as well. We both needed
hospitalization right away and were flown, later that day, to Sunnybrook
Hospital where they have a top notch trauma centre. I found out that I would need one or more
operations to mend my broken ankle, broken hand and slashed knee. Still, I was glad to be alive! I knew that I had hit someone, but I wouldn’t
know the extent of her injuries till much later.
Later, when I
talked to my friend who’d lent me his car, I found out that the car had been
totalled, all except for the driver’s compartment, which was somewhat
compressed but intact. Immediately after
the crash had happened, I remember very clearly thinking that I was
going to die and that I would never again see my teenage son and I felt a great
sadness. I also remember hearing a
passerby driver’s voice speaking quietly and calmly to me. He told me that he was an off-duty paramedic
who had been in the vicinity of my accident just after it happened. Later, I surmised that he had stopped to talk
to me because he must have known that I could easily go into shock while
waiting in my car for help to arrive, and he was trying to prevent that shock
from happening.
Shock happens
when you’ve suffered a trauma of some kind and your body’s circulatory system
partly shuts down so that your vital organs get the necessary blood and your
external limbs don’t get as much. While
being trapped in my car (by the caved-in driver door and steering column), I
felt totally numb from the neck down; there was absolutely no feeling or sense
of being injured then. After a while
though, I felt like I was fading fast.
Without the fire fighters to free me from the wreckage and the EMS team
to stabilize me, give me first aid, and get me to the hospital, I still don’t
think that I would’ve lived. They gave
me morphine for the terrible pain I began to feel all over my body once I’d
been extracted from the vehicle and the morphine kept me going until we could
both be air-lifted to hospital. I still
had no idea how badly hurt either of us was.
The trauma of
this car accident resulted from the two vehicles colliding head-on – each going
60 kph in the opposite direction from the other, resulting in a crash at 120
kph. A crash at that speed (or even
less) could easily kill a person. I was
glad to be alive at the crash site and equally glad, later on, to discover that
I had not killed the other driver. I
remember, vividly, praying to God while trapped in my car, asking for
forgiveness for what I had just done. I
was so sorry that it had happened, but I was not ready to die just yet. My son still needed me and I needed him
too. He was really my only immediate family
member.
Later on, at the
hospital, when I had revived somewhat, I was still on the hospital gurney,
having just arrived there by helicopter.
The police officer who had written up the accident report, was there too
and asked me what had happened exactly.
After all, no one knew why I had driven off the road in the first
place. I said to him (very quietly), “I
guess I passed out. I’ve been working
very hard.” And, it was true – I had
been working very hard.
As it turned
out, when my court hearing came up about six months later, I found out that
this police officer had, himself, thought it was a “freak” accident, with
nothing to explain it other than what I had told him already. Thus, the officer told my lawyer (who’d
attended court with me) that he had no wish to testify against me in this
case. If he had testified against
me, I would have been convicted of a fairly serious traffic offence and received
some rather severe penalties (not jail, but something almost as bad). But, instead, he told my lawyer he would not
to testify against me and so, I was convicted of failure to share the road and I
got some relatively minor penalties.
To this day, I
still don’t know why this accident had to happen at all – except that I was too
foolish to keep on driving when I could easily have pulled over. I have tried my very best to learn a valuable
lesson from this accident, namely, not to ever repeat it under any
circumstances. I have heard from various
people since then who’ve told me that they also came close to dozing off while
driving home, but, by some miracle, did not manage to put either themselves or
others at risk of dying. If you are one
of those lucky drivers who survives a crash like mine, you should consider
yourself extremely fortunate to survive and be able to tell others about it.
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