Swim, Drive, Cycle
Swimming
I think I was about seven years old, mucking about with my younger brother on a boat jetty in Hullbridge, Essex. Next thing I know I'm in the water flailing around. Next next thing I know some 14 year old girl is giving me the kiss of life.

I was so mortified I ran to my nan who was coming down the slope and didn't even say sorry. What? A GIRL KISSED ME! O the horror!

That episode prompted me to learn to swim while I had the chance!




Driving
Nipping home the back way (narrow country lanes) between my friends place in the Maltings, Sawbridgeworth and my parents place in Old Harlow. A car came around a bend in the road, so I slowed down and pulled in. The wheels went over a patch of wet leaves and (in slow motion for the next minute) the steering wheel jerked to the left, the car went slowly up the bank, flipped to one side, and rolled onto its roof. Cue me dangling upside down in my seat, scrabbling with the seatbelt.

After getting out I ended up standing next to the woman in the car that rounded the corner. We both looked at my car, which was on its roof, side on, blocking the road. She said "Are you okay?". I said "Do you have a mobile phone?". I called my parents and my friend (the one I was just coming home from). I then checked myself for injury - a banged up ankle where it rattled between the pedals, and that was all. Lucky.

After a while we ended up with traffic backed up on both sides. Two guys and I managed to turn my car around and flip it onto its wheels. A policeman was in the queue, so he came forward with a broom and swept all the glass up, then offered me an escort home. That was quite breezy, driving without a front windscreen.

Next day, checking out the car, if I had a passenger with me they would have karked it. It was a write-off, and I was only doing about 10MPH when it happened. Nightmare.


There was another time at a set of traffic lights in Sawbridgeworth where I was stopped in a queue and saw a car crest a hill behind me, Dukes of Hazard-stylee, before plowing into my rear. Because I saw it, I clenched up and ripped all the muscles in the sheet across my back. Very sore, but not near death.


Last car related one - a few years ago, driving to work from our village through back roads to Hemel Hempstead. I had just left a village that had installed traffic calming devices on the roads in - huge signs and road narrowing devices that told the cars coming IN to the village that they had to give priority to people leaving the village. Makes sense, really.

I approached this forest of signs as a guy drew up to it. He slowed and stopped. I continued. At the last moment he went for it, and I think our combined head on collision speed was 60MPH. The resulting BANG meant lots of people in dressing gowns and slippers came out to look at the wreckage.

I'm wheezing because of the seatbelt pain. My glasses are not on my face - I later found them on the seat behind me. Fucktard comes over and says "Are you okay?!" and of course I tell him no. Later, as the cars are taken away by tow trucks, I ask a policeman if I'll have any trouble with the insurance. He looks at me, then at a HUGE sign that says "RIGHT OF WAY" on my side of the road, and just laughs.

Ended up with two weeks off work because of whiplash - back muscles supporting my neck, so typing was only possible for about half an hour before it became agony. Stupid fucker, some people just piss me off.




Biking
Two years ago here in Edmonton I was cycling to work. I started down the slope of the High Level Bridge, on the multi-use trail. Cars on the road are going by, with a big fence between us. Two cyclists are a fair distance behind me.

Next thing I know someone is asking me about medical insurance and I realise I'm in the back of an ambulance as the other paramedic is lifting my mangled wreck of a bike into the back.

I have no recollection of what happened, and I lost about half an hour of my life. At the time I didn't think to ask anyone else, because I was concussed. Evidence (the bike, my face) hints that the wheel taco'd into a U shape and I went over the handlebars and used my face as a brake, but I have no idea WHY.

In the hospital I called my wife and got a bed in E.R. very quickly - head injuries do that, it seems - where a comedy duo of doctors told me that someone else had an accident on the bridge a week before.

"Yes, he was a Doctor, you know", said the first.
"A friend of mine", said the second.
"He wasn't wearing a helmet, you know"
"He died afterwards"
"I treated him - he died on me"
"Oh but you had a helmet, good for you"

Thanks a bunch, you morbid fucks. That helped!

My better half had to wake me every hour that night to see if I was concussed. She would try to confuse me, the minx, "Susan! Wake up! What's your name?". I was too clever for her, though!


Of course, a year later, cycling home on that same bridge, I clipped the edge of the handlebars on the fence and shot across the cycle path to stop my forward progress using a bridge stanchion and my face. As I flew out of control towards the huge metal girder I thought "Here we go again" and then POW. Mortally embarassing but at least I stayed conscious... Wrecked the nail on one big toe and had a great nosebleed but apart from that I got off lightly...




Never going to apologise for length because the whole point of these questions is to provide answers, so stop it!
(kiwanotree Meh, Thu 2 Dec 2004, 18:08, Reply)