My Near Death Experience
I left after seven am Thursday morning. Packed my jeep with essentials for a road trip. In decent weather I can make the trip in one day. This time I was prepared to stay overnight halfway due to the winter storm Polly wrecking havoc across the US.
A few hours into an uneventful start and I hit the first storm. I slowed down and was out of it in twenty minutes. Filled up in the town of Elko and continued on my journey.
Now it's sunny. It's 70 mph but I know I'm nearing a narrow tunnel so I'm down to half that. The tunnel is very small and it is cold as it just snowed twenty miles back. Everyone else is flying by me but I do not care. I round a bend and enter the dark tunnel. I am in the left lane with a semi truck and trailer at my back fender in the right lane.
Suddenly the SUV in front of us bounces off the wall and in the blink of an eye is sideways in the tunnel. Stopped. It's blocking both lanes and there is nowhere for me to go. I can't stop. I'm sliding on black ice but maneuver far left. There's a small chance I can slide between the narrow gap between her back bumper and the wall. My heart is stopped. My breath is stopped. I pray. I'm almost clear.
Almost.
Bam.
I'm in the middle of the tunnel squashed between the wall and a silver jeep just like mine.
The semi just barely slides between the front of the jeep and the right concrete tunnel wall.
I hit reverse and floor the gas. Nothing. I put her in drive and floor it. No use. I'm wedged tight in a dark tunnel with traffic coming fast at 70 mpg.
I hit my 911 call button on my rearview. An operator asks what the problem is.
I explain me and another other jeep are wedged deep in the tunnel just west of Elko Nevada. I look into my rearview mirror, scared of what I know is behind me.
I suddenly see three semi trucks barreling around the corner. Heading full speed into the tunnel.
I scream this to the emergency operator and tell her to make them stop.
The first semi slams on his breaks when he sees us. He jackknifes. Taking up the entire width of the tunnel his truck and trailer is flying sideways at us.
I watch in slow motion. It probably only took three seconds but it felt like minutes.
I duck my head and brace for impact. His truck is going to slice the tops off our jeeps.
But I still have full view of the carnage coming.
The first semi slams into us. Hard. Ripping and moaning metal. Loud. So loud. I can't think of anything except how thankful I am that I did not take my son's cat Gizmo with me on this trip. She wouldn't have made it. I know I won't.
The other jeep is scooped onto its side and airborne. I watch the underneath of it in my back window going upward in slow motion. I realize I never knew what the underside of a car looked like. Weird. It goes up and up. I know the passengers will not make it.
It lands on top of my jeep. Then we're both hit hard by the next two semis, the first one scooping me upward and diagonal, sliding the other Jeep off. The seatbelt cuts into my shoulder as I dangle upsidedown. The second hit almost simultaneously but it felt like a minute later, so much was going on. This one flipped me over and sideways, slamming the wheels back to earth, smashing me back into the tunnel wall. More and more vehicles just kept coming and coming, grinding me further into the tunnel wall.
Grinding and crunching and groaning metal is echoing. Echoing. Deafening. It never ends.
I picture the cars and trucks never ending. Coming and coming. They'll never see it coming.
We didn't.
I can't get out. I'm smashed in hard. I picture the scene in Independence day when the mom is running through the tunnel with her little boy, chased by a fireball with nowhere else to go. The look on her face desperate, the knowledge she and her son will die in that tunnel. Sheer, raw hopelessness.
The smashes stop pushing me. The terrible sounds seem muffled, far away.
Everything around me is wrong. Nothing will come into focus. My Jeep and the semi's tangled with me are out of whack- I know what my Jeep looks like, and I know how semi's look, but I can't recognize anything around me. There's sharp angles everywhere. Nothing is real.
My head is ringing.
My side is ground so far into the tunnel wall that it appears to make up my window. I automatically reach for my door handle but it's not where it's supposed to be. I find it and pull- nothing. Not that I could open my door even a millimeter had the handle worked but that's now how your mind works in this situation.
I look over to the passenger side. Wait- this isn't my car. I don't recognize it. It's wrong.
I look around. Everything's wrong.
I smell gas. I start to freak out. I'm snapped out of the "numb zone".
I try to unlatch my seatbelt- it's pressing me hard into the seat. It's stuck. I yank and wrestle with it. It won't budge.
I'm trapped. Any second a fire is going to start. I know anyone left alive in the tunnel will be eradicated within minutes.
I remember my knife. A sturdy 3 inch folding knife with a window breaker that goes everywhere with me because there's a lot of bodies of water in the Pacific Northwest.
My knife also has a seatbelt cutter. I reach into my pocket and breathe a sigh of relief when it's still there because everything else is off or wrong or vanished.
It makes short work of that seatbelt. It's a struggle but I'm thankful I can strategically wiggle out from under the dashboard as that too is wrong. It's never been that close to my thighs.
I try the passenger door handle. Nada.
Panic starts to wash over me now as I scramble into the backseat, yanking handles and slamming my shoulder against doors and trying to remember how one is supposed to escape from this situation when movement at the front caught my attention.
A wide-eyed blond lady appears at my passenger window. "Are you ok?" I keep hearing crashing and groaning and ripping metal, but muffled.
"I need to get out of this car" I shout to her, "I can't get out!"
She helps pull me out the window. She points to the other jeep. "That's me." She says.
No way. I think. I must be staring at a ghost. I gape. There's no way a passenger in the jeep that hit the wall then was thrown onto me and then hit by a semi is alright and walking around.
To be continued... Part 2, the accident aftermath
It is truly a miracle that I am alive...
This, and so much more, happened to me a few days ago. I am having to break up the account into several posts, writing it in stages is the only way- I always say Write to Heal, because it is your Right to Heal. It's been a nightmare and I am experiencing PTSD... with a morbid highway patrol officer, a tunnel that's been a death trap for years and had two more seperate wrecks before 24 hours had passed and dozens more in the last couple of days, the status on everyone in the wreck, the serendipidous few rays of luck that happened after, how on earth can one even drive after a horrible accident, how I spent the night in the best place possible post accident, the trying-to-get-home cross country hijinks worthy of a Planes Trains and Automobiles remake, saying goodbye to the jeep that saved my life as I watch them sweep her up in bags, and managing severe and debilitating post traumatic rationally irrational mind fucks, please stay tuned...
Also, there is a lady who was pulled from the wreckage who is in serious condition with a number of injuries. I want to help her in any way I can.
I will continue with my series and photo contests, please be patient with me because I am going through a lot.
Thank you so much for your support and patience. I truly appreciate you guys, more than you know.
And I am so very thankful I am here with you today.
Hold your loved ones tight tonight <3
What if the last person on Earth was the one you hated most? Dead i. A Steemit Original Fiction Series. Episode 3 is out now!
In case you missed the beginning, you can catch up by clicking the following links: Episode 1 Prologue and Episode 2
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With Love, Positivity and Good Mojo Light,
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Can You Trust Your Mind?
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Whoa babe! A lucky escape.
You really do never know when your number is up, I guess you have to make the best of life while you can as it can be over in an instant.
Take it easy Kitten ❤️
Thanks hun ❤️
Wow....I am speechless. Literally held my breath all through this piece.
Everyday we leave our houses not knowing what's gonna befall us. I always tell people , each day you leave you house and come back home safe. Say thank you lord because many leave their houses and never return. I have seen numerous videos online of people who got crushed by truck and died. They never knew that day would be their end but it was.
We are no different from them but we are still alive till date.
I am happy to have you here @arbitrarykitten please do well to take care of yourself and be safe.
I love you!
You truly never know...
The aftermath sucks something fierce. But I know I will heal :) Thank you so much hun <3
I really feel compassionate about what you experienced.
Even though it is everything else but easy, "letting go" is key, because if not it will eat up on us and eventually it becomes so deeply buried within ourselves that we might even forget where certain patterns and feelings stem from. Acceptance is so important to go further without letting the past pain having a say in our present moment of limitless possibilities, because when we apply the unconscious principal "Time heals all wounds" we tend to suppress feelings.
Having said that, I also have had near death experiences. Not in the way you experienced it but nonetheless in a way that actively letting go any mind attachment was pivotal! Writing is one good method of doing so. But as I always highlight, practising mental Silence is a very powerful healing tool as well...
Good luck and all the best!
I was doing a pretty good job "distracting" myself from the images. Until I finally feel asleep that very night. I dreamed the image of the semi coming and when it hit my whole body jumped so hard I hit my head on the headboard.
When I was driving my rental car, and during sleep is when they are worst...
Mental silence? As in meditation?
Well, it is a very positive sign that you reprocess this experience in the dream state!
Clearing my mind by actively silencing it helped me tremendously in the process of letting go. This was necessary for me in the beginning because my mind was too chattery to simply stop it, and more importantly these thoughts are linked to the memory of unhealed energy. We usually recprocess such traumatic events in the dream state but most feel rather "haunted" by these dreams, which often entails that people have these dreams their whole life because feeling "haunted" is a state of suppression where energy gets stuck in us.
For me, actively clearing my thoughts was the way out of outdated thought patterns and after some time I released them in the dream state. Whenever I released the thoughts' energetic essence in the dream state, I woke up shortly afterwards and felt the physical release, I literally felt how my body releases density and became lighter..step for step more :)
So yes, of course you can talk a walk in nature or do anything that helps you to clear your thoughts. But personally, being aware of the effect such events have on us, actively shutting close our thoughts with the WILLINGNESS to let them go was by far most powerful.
I love all of this.
Thank you
God's miracle to be grateful for
True story <3
Believe it or not but I had to read this twice to be sure that it was for real.
It was as like a scene out of Final Destination ....
Writing will help indeed to deal with the "mindtraffic" :) and keep me glued to my screens with the urge to popcorn the shit out of my keyboard.
On a more serious note, glad to read that your injuries are minimal.
With support of this great community (all the comments I saw with thoughtful suggestions and heartfelt words) you will gain the strength to continue as always and with writing skills like yours, I'm even more interested in this chapter of your life.
Looking forward to part two. Getting out the popcorn...
Glad to read that you are alive and kickin.
Stay strong @arbitrarykitten!
The Steemit Support Group:) It truly is healing. I'm consistently amazed by the wonderful people of the community <3
Thank you
Oh my word goosebumps all over. I am so glad that you made it out and I'm still speechless. I truly hope that you recover quickly and that you are able to make it home.
It took four days and several different forms of transportation, but I made it safe and sound just a few hours ago!
Thank you hun. <3 I appreciate your well wishes. Most of my injuries are mental, and not to discount them at all, but there were worse physical injuries in that wreck and the others before and since.
Glad you made it home safely. Sometimes mental injuries are the hardest to heal so all the best in your recovery.
Wow...that is a really scary and daunting experience. Thank God you are alive and not just another road crash statistic. From what you describe it's truly a miracle- u could have been dead or seriously injured. Can't wait to read more about it.We can never be too safe out there on the roads but sorry for what you went through and do hope you get over the PTSD. Time will heal you.
It really is a miracle, I can feel that clearly.
I traveled for a bit with a lady who'd experienced a bad car wreck. She gave me some tips, and said it'll take time, but it gets easier :)
Oh my God, oh my God! I can’t believe what you went through! Thank goodness you’re alive. It seems impossible. I read every word, and I feel like I saw an intense movie scene. But it actually happened to you. Hugs and healing! Glad you survived!
To be completely honest I'm still in shock that I walked away. Especially while watching the DOT and fire men sweeping my Jeep into plastic bags... That's what really did it for me.
Thank you so much for your hugs and healing <3 They are deeply appreciated
Please consider getting in touch with a therapist, even if just for a few sessions.
In the direct aftermath of a traumatic experience, it's hard to know what kind of effect it will have on you in the medium-to-long term. Sometimes people just shake it off and think they're fine only to realize months or years later that they never really processed the event fully, and it comes back to haunt them.
PTSD can be extremely debilitating. Even if you're feeling like you have this under control, it never hurts to open up an avenue of communication so if things start to go south in the future, you can address them immediately and hopefully lessen any long-term consequences of the accident.
I am grateful to hear that you and the driver of the other vehicle were not seriously injured. Please take good care of yourself and take all the time you need to recover both physically and mentally.
I am finding a EMDR specialist. It's not quite like the movies portray, but I'm having the images replay. And I had to return the rental car and find different ways home because of the panic attacks while driving the next day.
EMDR and CBT works well.
Thank you so much <3 I know so many people believe they can handle a trauma on their own. But these things have a way of taking control and changing your mind and reaction.
Thoughtful suggestion hun <3 I absolutely agree with you and encourage anyone who has had something traumatic happen to see a specialist. It does not mean you're weak! It actually means you are strong and have a powerful, protective survival instinct :)
That's great to hear! You're absolutely right, getting help is not a sign of weakness.
And yes, sometimes our survival instincts can be perfectly understandable (if a military vet had been in an ambush, I totally understand why hearing fireworks outside their home would cause visceral, gut-level anxiety even in non-combat situations) but it can be out of proportion to the actual threat (they're just fireworks). Even if it's completely understandable, it's hard to live with a constant background of stress and anxiety.
I also applaud you for taking the time to write all of this out when it must be extremely difficult to relive the events by blogging about them. A lot of people try to avoid or suppress negative experiences and emotions (again, totally understandable), but addressing them proactively can be helpful in understanding that you did experience a traumatic event that isn't processed in the same way as normal day-to-day events. It can also help to make sense of the gut-level feelings/flashbacks/nightmares instead of feeling confused as to why they are happening and and powerless to make them stop.
Best of luck with the EMDR, and I look forward to reading any updates you might post. <3
Thank you for collaborating with me to promote this post as explained at https://steemit.com/steemit/@jerrybanfield/10-ways-to-fund-a-steem-growth-project.
I hope I can open a few avenues of communication, and spread some awareness. It is easy to feel alone after traumatic events, and all kinds of messed up things happen in your mind. I hope I can help someone, or even give the tools for someone to help a loved one after an event <3
Thank you