Thirty years ago, I died. It was mid-March of 1994, as I recall. I was 18 years old, and this may or may not have been about the fifth or sixth time I had been in a situation where I could have been over and done with this life — and yet, I decided to remain, or to come back and keep on keeping on.
I don’t live a dangerous life. I’m not an adventure seeker, nor do I believe that I’ve purposefully put myself at risk. I may have acted stupidly now and then, but life happens, and it seems that we’re never too far away from death’s door, whether we’re planning to be or not. As of today, I think I may be up to 15 or 16 close calls, and I’m certainly not actively trying to add to that list.
* * *
It was a dark and stormy night. No, not really, but it was a damp and dreary evening after an early spring rain. A group of us high school seniors were driving back to my place to figure out what we’d be doing that night after playing floor hockey for a few hours at a local community hall, or maybe it was a school or church gym. The details aren’t clear. We piled into a friend’s Bronco II and headed back.
For some reason, the driver thought it’d be a good idea to blow through a stop sign. I guess he was still feeling a bit high on adrenaline from the earlier excitement. However, in less than a second in real time, things would change for all of us in a very dramatic and permanent way.
As I later learned, that particular intersection had been problematic for many drivers in recent years. It had been getting steadily busier due to ongoing development in the area. It was a bypass route for the main highway while also catering primarily to industrial and commercial establishments in the area. After our near-fatal experience, I guess the city planners finally decided that installing some traffic lights and additional street lighting would be a good idea. I believe our incident may have likely pushed the statistics over the threshold wherein the powers-that-be have to do something constructive to remedy an ongoing or dangerous traffic problem — as I understand it, this usually comes down to a certain number of deaths. We were fortunate that it didn’t come to that in our situation.
On we went, barreling through the intersection, when seemingly out of nowhere a cargo van of a telecom company slammed into us. I remember vividly seeing the oncoming headlights and my friend up front in the passenger seat saying something akin to “Oh, shit, here we go!!!” It’s an easy memory to recall to this day.
The van would no doubt have been fully loaded with materials, equipment, and gear, which would have made things all the more impossible to avoid for the driver. I never did hear about how he’d fared after the accident, but I presume he was alright, albeit traumatized. The big van hit us squarely on the side of the little Bronco, sending it flying through the air, nearly flipping over, and landing on a large Buick (I’m guessing a beefy ’80s model LeSabre) that was waiting at the stop sign opposite where we should have stopped. A few years later, I would meet the driver of that Buick after we’d already become friends and associates in business. I was recounting the incident one evening, and he started laughing out loud. “That was us you guys landed on!” What a strange connection that was! He said that if they’d been in a smaller vehicle, we may have likely crushed them — or at least possibly sheared off the top of their car. That would have been horrible… I would wager that on some plane we’d all discussed this monumental occasion and how it’d all play out. But I have no way of verifying that.
During this process, I exited the vehicle through the side window. Don’t ask me how that happened without causing me serious injury. I had been seated in the back beside my friend and his girlfriend. It was a cozy seat, as I recall, that wasn’t really designed for three grown humans to occupy at once without getting a little squished together and personal. I can’t say for certain, but I would have been wearing a seatbelt if one had been available. I may have been sitting off the side of the seat to give the others a bit of space. Regardless, the restraints didn’t keep me in the seat. Somehow, as the vehicle went airborne, I hit my head on the roof and went out the window, waking up on the wet road amid a pile of shattered glass and twisted metal. I had been concussed, of course, so nothing made sense for a while. Sitting on the curb, I could see street and hotel signs but couldn’t comprehend them. I didn’t know my name or where I was.
It was around this time that, apparently, a paramedic came up to me and asked if I was OK, and I guess I said, “Sure!” and they left me alone without checking me over. I guess that by all appearances I looked relatively uninjured. I had no idea what I was talking about. Later on, when we got home — and I have no idea how that happened either — my mother freaked out because I was bleeding from my arm, where some glass had been lodged, and all over my back, not to mention my eyes must have been a little strange looking with me having been completely knocked unconscious not too long ago. I couldn’t feel it at all, but I’d suffered road rash over much of my upper back from hitting and sliding across the pavement during the accident. That made for a few weeks of rather uncomfortable nights trying to avoid sleeping on my back.
Off we went to the hospital emergency. I recall sitting there waiting — I think it was a Friday night, so it was a bit busy — and seeing the news story about our accident on the TV, and how it was inaccurate and mildly amusing to listen to. I got patched up and, surprisingly, got away with relatively minor injuries considering what we’d been through. Nobody was killed. Nobody was badly broken. I had a cracked clavicle, road rash, bumps and bruises, and cuts on my arm. Amazing, really. Perhaps the worst thing, as I recall, was my best friend seeing me lying on the road in the fetal position, absolutely still. Thankfully, he didn’t have to see his longtime friend die that night. Remarkably, a few years later, the two of us would be in another vehicle collision together. Strange times indeed.
Some weeks after the big accident, when I was driving through that same intersection, with the same two friends this time sitting in the back seat of my own car, we nearly got hit in the same way! I didn’t blow the stop sign, of course, but I guess I hadn’t clearly seen oncoming traffic either. Chalk it up to momentary PTSD perhaps. That was surreal, if not hilarious after the fact.
Did I die? I’m not sure. Did I have an out-of-body or near-death experience? I can’t say because I don’t recall. Whatever happened, it didn’t remain accessible to me, and I haven’t attempted anything such as hypnosis or experiment otherwise to retrieve those memories. But given the nature of the accident and what could have happened, I can say quite confidently that there would have been some kind of intervention.
I didn’t feel much different after the incident, as far as I can recall. I didn’t have an epiphany nor critical decision that would alter the trajectory of my life’s path. I took it in stride, and perhaps a little too easily, looking back. I had back and shoulder issues for years after the fact. I think releasing any and all resentment I may have had toward those involved helped, for it wasn’t until recent years that I’d noticed those aches had gone away. How could it not? I could just as easily have had the same accident not long after the fact. Wouldn’t I hope those involved would forgive me as well for a momentary lapse in judgment?
* * *
Life is a fleeting thing here on Earth. I wish answers were more readily available as to its meaning, purpose, and design. I’ve generally taken things as they come, perhaps a little too passive overall, but I’ve trusted that there are reasons for things out of my control. But I’ve also struggled immensely along the way trying to understand, rationalize, and justify the seemingly endless pattern of suffering and pain that most of us have to endure, in between times of relative peace and, hopefully, joy and tranquility. In my younger years, I was motivated by ideas of waking up the masses and shaking up the status quo. It was an inexhaustible fuel for my music, which, over the years, shifted more into my writings and articles such as this one.
Regardless of how much a person may strive to maintain a cool head and simply absorb and adapt to life as it comes at them, there persists an uneasiness just below the surface that I won’t pretend I will ever accept as normal nor attempt to make silent. The noise is endemic to this realm; it exists and has an effect on us all. I don’t know if it was always this way, but for those of us in the here and now, we’re certainly of a particular makeup that is necessary for living in this era of great fluctuation and change.
We may go through life never experiencing something as dramatic as a near-death event. Or, we may go through a number of these near-miss events without any significant or obvious effect. For some, it is a catalyst for change. For others, it may mean nothing. Quite often we see those who have endured and survived the worst a human can go through come out the other side to pursue “the impossible” and succeed, when, perhaps if they hadn’t had those challenges to overcome, they would have likely lived a normal and perhaps excruciatingly routine existence.
It is my observation that it’s far more likely that we may die a long, slow death, existing as a mere shadow of our potential selves, playing out our story in quiet desperation, unconsciously and unwittingly succumbing to the machinations and manipulations of the system we are born into, whether it’s perceived as good or bad.
Is that good enough for you? If not, break the pattern.
Solvitur ambulando