It was my lucky night, not in the sense that some unexpected windfall had come my way, but much more than that, perhaps infintely more than that, I had escaped death.
I was, as usual, driving home from a rather tiring night raking in some extra cash from locum tenens. It was a little after ten. The road was coated with a shiny layer of rainwater, fresh from the evening drizzle.
Almost abruptly, there before me, a log-carrying trailer seemed to conjure itself out of the mist. Reflex took over. My right foot was on the break pedal even before I realized the emergency of the situation. The car screeched forward like a howling creature in flight from its predator. The intertia combined with the slippery road did little in slowing down the impact. The collision was head on in every sense of its word. ‘Bang!’ The windscreen was shattered into pieces. The front chassis of the car was totally damaged. I remained conscious throughout. It was not long after the impact that I regained full composure. Climbing out of the hind passenger door, I emerged unharmed.
By then, a sizable, boisterous crowd was already building up. I had to repeatedly reassure the kind samaritans that I was indeed fine although there was an aching pain around my left wrist. The night being dark as coal, what more with no street lights in the vicinity, I could hardly assess the injury sustained.
The crowd was then reiterating the kind of miraculous luck that has befallen the driver. I am still as thankful now as then of how close I have invited tragedy before it knocked on my doors that unfortunate night.