Car Accident

After the day in Cambridge, I caught up with a friend of mine from Canada called Nate from back in the days of KUA. He's one of the most fun loving creature on earth and naturally throws the best parties. I had pretty good fun at just one of those that night. It was good catching up with him and letting a bit loose after all the work.

The focus on this post however isn't exactly the fun parts of life. It's about the deep and meaningful, brought by the sudden moments of realisation that our lives hang by a thin line at any point of time, which can easily be snapped by the ever tempting fate. I just ran into one of these close calls in life in a vicious car accident.

It was late. We were getting home from a fun and busy (hence tiring) day. We were almost home, when the quiet, neighbourhood streets took a turn after a long, straight stretch about a mile down from home. Only too later did I realise that as much as the road was windy, it had stayed straight for long enough for the driver to fall asleep and by the time I realise he has no intentions to turn in the upcoming turn, it was too late to do anything about the immanent crash. All I was left with was trying to shake him awake and brace for the impact. I can spend quite a bit describing the eternity of the next couple of seconds, but the main point is: we crashed. We piled through a road sign and crashed into an utility pole, cracking it quite badly. There were no tire marks on the road, so I'm pretty sure no brakes were used and we crashed full speed in it.
Police were there right away. Within 5 minutes we had an emergency vehicle, an ambulance, a fire truck, a tow truck and three police cars surrounding us from everywhere. Nobody could believe, based on the condition of the car, that we just walked out of there without a scratch. They kept asking us if we are alright and if we were the only ones in the car. After all the noise and the standard rain of questions, we were left to go home and relax. The next day we could assess damages. The only thing I had was singed hair and slight burns on my hands. All damages were caused by the stupid air bags, which exploded to engage and filled the car with smoke. I didn't even touch the blasted (no pun intended) thing. My seatbelt kept me a fair distance from it (and that's a good thing, cause I could have been looking at broken ribs or something from the killer safety device). That's about it. I could keep going, but I think there is enough said.

Here are some pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/cyberhorse/Accident

Now (2 weeks later) the pole is replaced and we've named it tentatively "our pole" :) It's kind of good to look back onto this experience and learn from it. Also appreciate the fragility of life.