January 2nd, 2001

In my past post I put that I was in a car wreck before Melissa and I met that pushed back when she and I were going to meet.  Someone asked for what happened, so here is what happened as best as I can remember from January 2nd, 2001.  The day the Itsybishi died.
As you can see from the pictures, it had snowed the morning of Jan 2nd, something that is very rare here in the South.  I was working the evening shift at my job which put me in a little more danger.  I was asked by several people to not go to work due to the roads, but I’m a man and I knew I could make it with no trouble in my little low to the ground front wheel drive car.
I made it into work with no problems, the snow had started to melt and so the roads were kind of wet, but with the temps above freezing it wasn’t a problem.  The problem didn’t start until the temperature went down with the sun.  We started hearing reports of road closures in the area so people were being sent home.  Me, being the valuable employee that I was at the time was asked to stay to handle a few things before they let me go.  When I did finally get out of there for the night it was a little too late. 
I was on I-85 heading south from GA into Alabama.  I was just crossing the Chattahoochee River when I got my doors blown off by an 18 wheeler that was driving way too fast for the conditions.  As soon as he passed my car the wind off his trailer knocked my traction off and the poor Itsybishi started to slide.  I lost all control of the car and slid from the right hand lane into the barrier of the bridge of the left hand lane.  I hit the barrier pretty much head on and then I bounced back into traffic.  I knew other traffic was coming so I started the car back up, since the kill switch tripped when I hit the barrier.  I had just put the car back into gear and was coming off the clutch to pull myself back off the road when disaster struck.  And by disaster I mean another 18 wheeler rolling along at speeds to high for the road conditions.  The truck didn’t see me, it didn’t slow down, it didn’t hit it’s breaks, it just plowed right into my driver’s side door.  Due to the ice on the bridge the itsybishi started to spin from the collision, I spun right under the rear trailer tires  of the 18 wheeler, where I became hung.  Not sure how many of you have ever crossed the Chattahoochee River bridge on i-85, but it’s not that short of a bridge.  Keep that in mind as I tell you that I was hung under the trailer of this truck until it was able to spit me out into the median at the end of the bridge.  The truck was moving so fast that it traveled for about another 200 feet before rolling over onto it’s side.  Now I just realized that I forgot to mention that I wasn’t alone in the car.  A good friend of mine, that didn’t have a car at the time, was in the passenger seat when all of this went down.  My first thought was him.  I checked on him and he was alive, thank God! 
Now that I knew both of us were alive my thoughts were too of course get out of the car.  Drivers side door, not opening, as you can see from the pictures there was a good reason it didn’t open.  My passenger wasn’t in his right mind due to him hitting his head so I’m not really sure if he tried to open his door like I asked him to or not, but none the less it appeared we were trapped in the car.  Then I noticed that every window in the car had been knocked out, so we both went up and out of the sunroof to icy cold freedom.  I ran down to where the truck flipped to check on them.  Neither of them were hurt and they were real concerned about us.  At this time I was feeling no pain, so I’m thinking everything is fine except for the poor little itsybishi.  Guys, this little car was my life, I <3-ed this car so much I probably would have made sweet car lovin’ to it had the tailpipe not been so hot.  I’m looking over my car about to break down in tears when I see a guy standing next to me that stopped to help.  I looked at him, not knowing that I had a broken rib, glass embedded in my face with blood pouring out of my open wounds on my face and arm, and ask him if he thought the car could be fixed and where is the missing wheel?  I just knew I’d need that missing wheel when they went to fix the car.  Oh the things you think of at times of crisis. 
The ambulance arrives to take off my friend because he is still quite loopy.  At this point he doesn’t understand that he was just in a car wreck.  The EMT staff ask me if I’m ok and I reply that I’m fine, but it hurts just little bit to take a deep breath.  So the strap me into the ambulance with them and away we go.  I’ve already listed my injuries so no sense in listing them again, but my friend had no cuts on him, but he had a huge knot on his head and a concussion.
Last little funny part to the story, as I said in the beginning I was crossing the river coming from GA into AL.  GA state troopers and AL state troopers arrive on the scene.  The two of them start discussing who should write up the report.  AL said it should be GA because the wreck happened in GA, but GA said AL because the cars came to rest in AL.  This issue hadn’t been cleared up by the time I’m hauled off to the hospital so I had no idea who I needed to see to get my license back, or to get the police report.  The hospital staff was finally informed by the GA state trooper that GA took the accident so I needed to see the GA state patrol to get my accident report, and license back.
I didn’t know how badly my face was cut up, which was the main reason I didn’t want to meet Melissa, until I was sitting in the hospital and my face was warming up from the cold and I started to feel pain.  At this point I asked what was wrong with my face, why was it burning it so much.  (question to myself, why didn’t I notice the blood that was covering the front of my shift?)  The hospital would not show me a mirror and they wouldn’t let me look at myself.  All they did was lay me down and take a dry cloth to brush some of the glass off my face.  Can you say ouch?  I had to get the rest of the glass off of and out of my face and hair myself when I got home.  And in case anyone is wondering why I kept calling the car Itsybishi, it was a Mitsubishi Eclipse, and everyone said it looked so tiny when I was next to it or getting in or out of it so it was named the Itsybishi, think itsy bitsy spider…
Sorry this story is so long, but I wanted to make sure I got all the details I could remember in.

That's me in the second picture looking at the car.The people at the junk yard were talking to Jason and I when we were looking at the car and they asked if we knew the guy in the car, and that they were pretty sure that who ever was in the car didn't live.  Jason told him that the guy in the car did live and that he was standing right over there, and pointed to me.