I left after seven am Thursday morning. Packed my jeep with essentials for a road trip. In decent weather I can make the trip in one day. This time I was prepared to stay overnight halfway due to the winter storm Polly wrecking havoc across the US.
A few hours into an uneventful start and I hit the first storm. I slowed down and was out of it in twenty minutes. Filled up in the town of Elko and continued on my journey.
Now it's sunny. It's 70 mph but I know I'm nearing a narrow tunnel so I'm down to half that. The tunnel is very small and it is cold as it just snowed twenty miles back. Everyone else is flying by me but I do not care. I round a bend and enter the dark tunnel. I am in the left lane with a semi truck and trailer at my back fender in the right lane.
Suddenly the SUV in front of us bounces off the wall and in the blink of an eye is sideways in the tunnel. Stopped. It's blocking both lanes and there is nowhere for me to go. I can't stop. I'm sliding on black ice but maneuver far left. There's a small chance I can slide between the narrow gap between her back bumper and the wall. My heart is stopped. My breath is stopped. I pray. I'm almost clear.
Almost.
Bam.
I'm in the middle of the tunnel squashed between the wall and a silver jeep just like mine.
The semi just barely slides between the front of the jeep and the right concrete tunnel wall.
I hit reverse and floor the gas. Nothing. I put her in drive and floor it. No use. I'm wedged tight in a dark tunnel with traffic coming fast at 70 mpg.
I hit my 911 call button on my rearview. An operator asks what the problem is.
I explain me and another other jeep are wedged deep in the tunnel just west of Elko Nevada. I look into my rearview mirror, scared of what I know is behind me.
I suddenly see three semi trucks barreling around the corner. Heading full speed into the tunnel.
I scream this to the emergency operator and tell her to make them stop.
The first semi slams on his breaks when he sees us. He jackknifes. Taking up the entire width of the tunnel his truck and trailer is flying sideways at us.
I watch in slow motion. It probably only took three seconds but it felt like minutes.
I duck my head and brace for impact. His truck is going to slice the tops off our jeeps.
But I still have full view of the carnage coming.
The first semi slams into us. Hard. Ripping and moaning metal. Loud. So loud. I can't think of anything except how thankful I am that I did not take my son's cat Gizmo with me on this trip. She wouldn't have made it. I know I won't.
The other jeep is scooped onto its side and airborne. I watch the underneath of it in my back window going upward in slow motion. I realize I never knew what the underside of a car looked like. Weird. It goes up and up. I know the passengers will not make it.
It lands on top of my jeep. Then we're both hit hard by the next two semis, the first one scooping me upward and diagonal, sliding the other Jeep off. The seatbelt cuts into my shoulder as I dangle upsidedown. The second hit almost simultaneously but it felt like a minute later, so much was going on. This one flipped me over and sideways, slamming the wheels back to earth, smashing me back into the tunnel wall. More and more vehicles just kept coming and coming, grinding me further into the tunnel wall.
Grinding and crunching and groaning metal is echoing. Echoing. Deafening. It never ends.
I picture the cars and trucks never ending. Coming and coming. They'll never see it coming.
We didn't.
I can't get out. I'm smashed in hard. I picture the scene in Independence day when the mom is running through the tunnel with her little boy, chased by a fireball with nowhere else to go. The look on her face desperate, the knowledge she and her son will die in that tunnel. Sheer, raw hopelessness.
The smashes stop pushing me. The terrible sounds seem muffled, far away.
Everything around me is wrong. Nothing will come into focus. My Jeep and the semi's tangled with me are out of whack- I know what my Jeep looks like, and I know how semi's look, but I can't recognize anything around me. There's sharp angles everywhere. Nothing is real.
My head is ringing.
My side is ground so far into the tunnel wall that it appears to make up my window. I automatically reach for my door handle but it's not where it's supposed to be. I find it and pull- nothing. Not that I could open my door even a millimeter had the handle worked but that's now how your mind works in this situation.
I look over to the passenger side. Wait- this isn't my car. I don't recognize it. It's wrong.
I look around. Everything's wrong.
I smell gas. I start to freak out. I'm snapped out of the "numb zone".
I try to unlatch my seatbelt- it's pressing me hard into the seat. It's stuck. I yank and wrestle with it. It won't budge.
I'm trapped. Any second a fire is going to start. I know anyone left alive in the tunnel will be eradicated within minutes.
I remember my knife. A sturdy 3 inch folding knife with a window breaker that goes everywhere with me because there's a lot of bodies of water in the Pacific Northwest.
My knife also has a seatbelt cutter. I reach into my pocket and breathe a sigh of relief when it's still there because everything else is off or wrong or vanished.
It makes short work of that seatbelt. It's a struggle but I'm thankful I can strategically wiggle out from under the dashboard as that too is wrong. It's never been that close to my thighs.
I try the passenger door handle. Nada.
Panic starts to wash over me now as I scramble into the backseat, yanking handles and slamming my shoulder against doors and trying to remember how one is supposed to escape from this situation when movement at the front caught my attention.
A wide-eyed blond lady appears at my passenger window. "Are you ok?" I keep hearing crashing and groaning and ripping metal, but muffled.
"I need to get out of this car" I shout to her, "I can't get out!"
She helps pull me out the window. She points to the other jeep. "That's me." She says.
No way. I think. I must be staring at a ghost. I gape. There's no way a passenger in the jeep that hit the wall then was thrown onto me and then hit by a semi is alright and walking around.
To be continued... Part 2, the accident aftermath
It is truly a miracle that I am alive...
This, and so much more, happened to me a few days ago. I am having to break up the account into several posts, writing it in stages is the only way- I always say Write to Heal, because it is your Right to Heal. It's been a nightmare and I am experiencing PTSD... with a morbid highway patrol officer, a tunnel that's been a death trap for years and had two more seperate wrecks before 24 hours had passed and dozens more in the last couple of days, the status on everyone in the wreck, the serendipidous few rays of luck that happened after, how on earth can one even drive after a horrible accident, how I spent the night in the best place possible post accident, the trying-to-get-home cross country hijinks worthy of a Planes Trains and Automobiles remake, saying goodbye to the jeep that saved my life as I watch them sweep her up in bags, and managing severe and debilitating post traumatic rationally irrational mind fucks, please stay tuned...
Also, there is a lady who was pulled from the wreckage who is in serious condition with a number of injuries. I want to help her in any way I can.
I will continue with my series and photo contests, please be patient with me because I am going through a lot.
Thank you so much for your support and patience. I truly appreciate you guys, more than you know.
And I am so very thankful I am here with you today.
Hold your loved ones tight tonight <3
What if the last person on Earth was the one you hated most? Dead i. A Steemit Original Fiction Series. Episode 3 is out now!
In case you missed the beginning, you can catch up by clicking the following links: Episode 1 Prologue and Episode 2
Thank you for your support, I love you guys ♡
With Love, Positivity and Good Mojo Light,
May Your Days Be Always Happy and Bright!
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