Is This the End?
A week or so ago I mentioned that the engine may have died in our Axiom. To be sure I had it towed to my dad's shop in NC to have them take a look, and as it turns out, all it needed was a good tune-up, timing belt job, and a few other odds and ends to get her back on the road. So earlier in the week we drove down to NC to pick it up, spent a few days with the parents, and then drove both vehicles back yesterday evening. I had our two-year old in the VX, and my wife had our newborn in the Axiom. She was following me.
We live off of a long and winding country road that snakes it's way through the mountains, with lots of grades and blind curves. It was about 10:00 PM when I entered one of those curves, started up the hill, then saw a pair of headlights whiz by me at ridiculous speed. I was temporarily blinded but when my eyes readjusted (and we're talking a split second here) there was a second car sliding down the hill, already sideways, with his passenger side coming right at us. There was nothing to do - he was blocking both lanes, and coming so fast that by the time I saw him there was no time to react. I was going probably 40-45 MPH, and I imagine he was sliding at the same (or perhaps faster) speed. The airbags deployed, the impact stopped us cold and spun him into the ditch, and everything went black.
Thankfully everything was black because there were no lights, not because I was unconscious. No street lights, no interior or exterior lights on my car, and no lights from the other guy's car (his were pointed into the ditch). And then I heard Mahalia start crying from the backseat. It's hard to describe the fear that grips you when you can't see your child, only hear them cry in the darkness without any way to turn on a light. Thankfully I'm pretty tall so I just turned around in my seat, unhooked her harness, and pulled her onto my lap. I carried her over to Sonya's car and we checked her over (as did the paramedics a little later) and found nothing. No bumps, bruises, scratches, absolutely nothing. As for me I had a burn and slight bruise on my wrist and a minor bloody nose (both caused by the air bag I'm sure) but was otherwise okay. So after I handed Mahalia off to Sonya I walked over to the other car.
His engine was still running when I walked up, but no one was in the driver's seat. At first I thought maybe they had already gotten out, but I realized I was the only one there. I walked around to the passenger side and in doing so, saw a child seat turned upside down in the backseat. For whatever reason I just had the sense that no one was in it and I was right - apparently he was carrying it loose and there wasn't a child strapped into it (thank God). I did see someone leaned against the passenger door, so I started pounding on the glass to get his attention. I didn't want to open the door and have him fall out, so I walked back around and opened the driver's door. It took me a minute to process what I was seeing, but I soon realized that the guy in the passenger seat was the driver, and that he was not wearing his seat belt when we hit. He had been thrown first into the windshield, blowing a chunk of it out into the field, and then back into the passenger door. I could only see the left side of his face, which was cut in several places, especially around his eye. Blood was dripping from his chin and pooling on his shirt. I started shaking his leg and saying "Hey buddy! Hey buddy are you with me?!?" No response. I could hear him breathing, but it sounded like he was snoring and congested. Sonya called 911 and when I described his condition I was told 9 units were descending on our location (we didn't know exactly where we were but they triangulated our cell phone signal) along with a Medivac helicopter.
About this time it occurred to me that Dakota, our Husky-Germany shepherd mix, was riding in the back of my VX. Because the Axiom was out of commission I had removed the pet barrier and Tone box from the cargo area so that I could lower the backseat to load our newborn. That meant, for better or worse, there was more room for her to be thrown than she would have had with the barrier in place. I opened the door and she peeked out at me, hopped to the ground, and then trotted up the road where I loaded her in the back of the Axiom. Something cut her just below the tear duct and she had a chunk of blood and skin that was still partly attached. But as luck would have it there was a vet on-scene and she checked her out for us. No other injuries, including to the eye just above the cut. She was very very lucky - I found all sorts of stuff in the back that had been thrown out of my rear door cargo box.
Help arrived within just a few minutes, and they immediately started cutting into his windshield and making preparations to get him on a stretcher. As I was giving my statement I could hear a helicopter flying low overhead, searching in the dark for a pre-designated landing zone on the side of the mountain. I vaguely remember watching an army of people lift him out the car, strap him onto the gurney in sitting position, and then roll him by me on their way up the road to the helicopter. For the first time I could see the side of his face that had hit the windshield, and it looked like hamburger meat. Both of his eyes were covered in blood and swollen shut, and he had cuts everywhere. I overheard one of the paramedics say that he had a deep laceration over his lip, and that he was losing a lot of blood. As this was all happening, a second officer walked up to the one who was taking my statement and asked if wanted an accident scene investigation. The first guy shook his head and said it was "pretty cut and dry" and it was "obvious what happened here." I said "really?" and he told me that the guy was clearly intoxicated. I didn't smell it when I opened the car, but then again I didn't get close enough to smell his breath. I assume the paramedics who lifted him must have smelled and reported it.
What I don't yet know is who he is or what he was doing. The paramedics said he told them his name was Jeff and that he was 25, but the cops couldn't find any ID for him anywhere. What the tow truck operator (who I happen to know because he's also my mechanic) said he heard was that the car wasn't registered to him at all, and that when the police called the owner on file, they said it was their daughter's vehicle and didn't know why she wasn't in it. I haven't seen a missing person alert today, so I assume she probably just went with her friends to a movie or something. But the question of who the guy is, why he was driving someone else's car, and what exactly he was doing when he lost control are still a mystery.
I visited the crash site this morning and I think I have a good idea on the last part. For the longest time I couldn't understand why he would be sliding sideways; coming from his direction, the road undulates up and down for a half mile or so but stays in a straight line. It's possible he was trying to dodge a deer or other animal, but that seems unlikely because he was very close to the first car that passed me. You would think that there wouldn't be enough time for a deer to step out between the two, and that if one did he wouldn't have had a prayer of dodging it. And there was no damage to the front of his car, so it looks like he was clean when he started to spin. From the beginning Sonya and I suspected he was either racing or chasing the guy in the first car because of their speed and proximity, but Sonya was the one who suggested that maybe he went airborne coming over the top of the hill.
I don't know if any of you guys have ever had the misfortune of unexpectedly going airborne in a car, but the thing you realize is that you must absolutely keep your front wheels pointed perfectly straight in the direction you're flying, or when they make contact they'll likely pull you in whatever direction they're facing. This effect is even more pronounced in a front-wheel drive car (like the Nissan Sentra he was driving), since those wheels would "dig in" as soon as they made contact. So I have a feeling that he was drunk, racing with his friend down a winding road on a dark drizzly night, and trying to correct his landing when I came around the curve. I can only imagine his horror as my headlights suddenly filled the interior of his car with light, just before my passenger side bumper plowed into his rear quarter panel, pushing the door a good third of the way into the car. It's hard to believe anyone not wearing a seat belt could survive such a crash, and honestly right now I don't know if he did. I'm waiting on a call from the sheriff's office to give me an update on who he was, who the car is owned by, and what if any insurance covers them, so I'm planning to ask about his health as well.
So here are the pics you all may or may not want to see:
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~ ~ > OFF ROAD WHORE <~ ~ 
Originally Posted by vt_maverick
