Christmas Wreck

It was ten years ago this Christmas that I was in a wreck with my cousin, just two days before Christmas day.

We were leaving church. It was pretty cold, rainy. A bunch of us decided to go get a bite to eat. I decided to ride with my cousin in his old Ford pick-up. He raced a friend out of the parking lot, and when we got onto the road, they were still vying for first place. My cousin mentioned that there were two ways we could get to the restaurant, and said, "Pick a or b."

I picked b, and he veered off onto a back road through the woods. He told me to put on my seatbelt (which I had already done because I am a law-abiding citizen, thank you very much) because we'd be going fast. I'm not sure how fast we were going, but I'm sure it was well over the speed limit, when we hit a long curve in the road.

The truck very gently began sliding towards the outside of the curve. My cousin slowed down, and it seemed like the truck was back on track when it began to fishtail back and forth across the road. On one side of the road was a lake or pond, and the other side, a small hill covered with trees.

Suddenly we were hurtling straight towards a huge tree. We were in a truck with no airbags, and the tree was just yards ahead of us, and we were still moving pretty quickly. I just knew it would be very, VERY bad if we hit the tree head on.

At the last minute, the truck swerved a couple feet aside, missing the tree and heading down the hill. I was so glad we had missed the tree that relief was the most overwhelming feeling I had as we began to roll end over end down the hill.

Tumbling down the hill was really surreal. All of these baby trees seemed to rush towards us, and I could hear them slapping against the truck. Then we were flipping over and so much dust filled the truck that I had to close my eyes.

When we stopped, the truck was lying on the driver's side, facing the opposite direction we'd been coming. My cousin asked if I was okay and I said, "I've got dust in my eyes." It took me a few moments to remember to ask him if he was okay.

Once I had rubbed away the dust and opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was smoke coming from under the hood. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to make me feel a bit panicked. I pushed on the door, but it was so heavy, and I was hanging from the seatbelt, and I couldn't open it. I looked down at my cousin and told him I couldn't get the door open. I turned back to try again and still couldn't get it.

When I looked back down, my cousin was gone. Later he said that he couldn't remember getting out of the truck, but there he was, standing outside of the truck (the back window had popped out). My seatbelt wouldn't unclick with me hanging in it, so he lifted me up enough to get the weight off of it, and helped me down.

Neither of us had cell phones, so we had to climb up the hill and walk a ways to get to a house where we could call someone.

When friends and family showed up, they said that they had just been about to come looking for us since we had never made it to the restaurant. If something had happened to us, though, they would have had a hard time finding us that night because you couldn't see the truck from the road. The truck was totaled.

It was all pretty crazy. And one of the craziest things was that the worst injury I got from it was months later when I put on the gloves I had been wearing that night and cut myself on a piece of glass that was down in one of the fingers.