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I was coming home one night around 11:30 PM. My office is in a small rural town and most of the roads around here are 2 lanes each. I was traveling eastbound minding my own business coming up on a T intersection. Another car coming from the east, towards me decides that he wants to try and turn south on the side road, right as I'm approaching the intersection. Mind you I'm going around 60 MPH. I had 1 of 2 choices to make within about a second. Either hit the front right corner of his car, or veer left across the other lane, hope at best for a glancing blow on him and recover. I veered left. the left tires caught the opposite shoulder where the soft gravel sucked me further to the left. My brakes felt useless. The ditch was pretty level actually and I went right through it into the corn field. The farmer had already harvested the corn and plowed the field. When I got into the soft dirt, the car slid sideways, passenger side first. Once the Miata got fully sideways, the tires dug in and off we went, my Miata and me, into the wild blue yonder. We barrel rolled around 7 times before coming to a rest on the roof. My door had been sprung open and there was plenty of broken glass all over the place. The air bag did not deploy and my seatbelt did it's intended job. I unlatched it and crawled out. That's when I got hurt. The broken glass did a number on the top of my scull requiring a little bit of stitchery in the E.R. Some guy had been about an eigth of a mile behind me and saw the whole thing happen. He pulled over right away and expected to find me in pieces all over the corn field. He was quite surprised to see me walking away. I think it actually scared him more than me. the guy who caused all of this never even stopped. It was rather fortuneate for me that this guy saw it happen as without his accounting, my insurance company would have never bought me a new car and the police would not have believed anything I said. The next day I could not even move my left arm. My shoulder and chest were quite bruised from the seat belt. And I still have a healthy knot on the back of my neck and it's been 4 years. I'd like to think that I used to be taller but nobody believes that excuse... I went out right away and got Miata #2 which I traded last year for my '95M. And no, I didn't/don't have a roll bar. |