The Christmas I almost died Twice
It must have been the Christmas of 88 or 89. I can’t remember. I do know it was in the week leading up to Christmas.
We were in port, in GA. We were refitting the boat to go back out to sea, the4 Gold Crew was already gone. Must have been a slow week. The crew was split into watch or duty sections. Just a skeleton crew really. Enough people to keep things running smoothly. There were 4 of us my roommate Paul, myself, Powell and one other guy. (fading memories suck). We had been given roughly 48 hours of liberty. Stay in Ga or make the 4 hour drive up to Charleston? It was pretty much a no brainer, and Paul had his car with him. As I recall it was a newer model Mustang. So, we left Ga and it had been snowing, with more storms on the way. That’s one of the perks being on the water, snow and lots of it. But, we were young and stupid so we pushed on. Paul was driving, I was riding shotgun the other 2 guys were in the backseat. Im not sure, but I’m thinking we were about 1/2 way home. Somewhere along the way, I’d fallen asleep. Long days take their toll. Something woke me up. Looking back it must have been Paul or one of the other guys yelling. We had hit a patch of black ice and spun out. It was a small 2 lane highway. We crossed the center line and slid down the embankment backwards.
I woke up in time to witness us spinning sideways and the tree rapidly approaching my window. The hood was all bent up and steam was pouring from the engine. Obviously we were panicked and scrambling to get out. I tried my door, but the tree was having no part of letting me open it. So, I had to climb over his seat and get out on the driver’s side.
You wouldn’t think I would be using the word lucky. Well lucky that we weren’t hurt, and we had our accident across from a small motel. One of the occupants witnessed our accident and let us come into his room to warm up.
What happened next was out of a movie of the week or something. He asked where we were from and going. We told him we were on leave and heading home for a couple of days. He said “Well I have a car I’m not using, and as long as you don’t mind no heat, just bring it back and drop it off on your way back to base.”
We were all silent for a moment. I mean who does this stuff. But we quickly agreed and Paul gave him his info. Twenty minutes later, we were on the road. Now, I had mentioned the no heat thing. That wasn’t the worst of it. I was sitting in the back seat behind the driver. Where my floor should have been was a gaping hole. I was watching the road pass by under my feet at 50 miles an hour. So, not only was the heat non existent and the windows cracked to keep the windshield from fogging up, but I could have done the flinstone thing. I mean. I don’t want to complain, a car is a car right?
So we were within an hour of Charleston, and the roads were worse. So, we spun out again, and pulled off the road. I’m not sure why we got out but, we did. Within a few minutes another vehicle lost control and pulled off near us. So, we’re standing there and Powell was near the front of the car by the driver side door. Guess what? Yup another car lost control and smashed into ours. The driver side door was open(for whatever reason). The new car hit the door and bent it all the way forward until it was stopped by the front of the car. Seconds before, was where Powell had been standing. He had managed to jump back onto the hood just in time. I shudder to think how bad he would have been hurt.
So, the car was banged up. In hindsight, it was a shitty thing to do but, we left it there. What choice did we have really. We couldn’t have it towed anywhere. The people in the mini van were nice enough to give us a ride back to my house.
The next night we were in a Navy van on our way back to the base. To this day, I can’t really sleep in a car anymore. On long drives it really sucks. Every noise, every little jostling of the car brings me right out of my dozing.