So very happy to still be alive.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Glad to hear you're ok.

Gunshots are of course more dramatic, but I think I know how you feel right now. A few years ago, my wife and I nearly died in a car accident on the highway. Some moron just switched into our lane unexpectedly, for no apparent reason, while he was driving much slower than us. My wife avoided him, but we were going straight to a concrete wall at 120 km/h. I was sitting next to her and reached to give the wheel a quick turn to avoid the wall. We avoided the wall, but started slipping. Another fast going car avoided us and ultimately, our car stopped in the middle of the highway, our nose in the opposite direction. I stared directly in the face of a woman, driving a Mercedes which had missed us at an inch. We could've died in three or four possible ways, yet we somehow managed to get out of it without even a scratch on our car.

We couldn't just stand there, so she just started the engine, drove to the next exit and there we stopped for a long while, not really sure about what had happened. It all went so fast and I'm actually surprised I remember all the details. It's also weird that we hadn't actually been afraid and that we didn't have a problem to just jump in the car again and continue our journey as if nothing had happened.

Yeah, I had a similar experience up in New Hampshire.

My aunt I had been staying with temporarily was driving me to get some clothes, or something... the highway was slick and the guy in front of us in a different lane started sliding, and slipped completely sideways, with one end of the vehicle flying toward the passenger side of the car I was sitting in, where I was sitting.

My aunt quickly reacted, turning left and avoiding the vehicle, but at the rate of speed we were moving and the sudden drop in speed from the other guy, if she had even been momentarily distracted I could have died or been crippled for life. There was absolutely nothing that could have been done on my part, even bracing myself wouldn't have helped.

I do remember watching it happen like it was a scene in a movie. Didn't even click that I could have died, even when I started telling myself hey, I could have died. Where's the reaction? No reaction.

It's really odd to me, that in a situation like that where your instinctive fear and panic and whatever, whatever it might have been useful for, doesn't even kick in because everything's happening too fast for you to have an emotional reaction to it other than surprise.

It can sometimes go so fast and unexpected. If my wife hadn't avoided the car coming into our lane, if my reflex while we're heading straight to that concrete wall would've been a fraction of a second later, if the other car wouldn't have avoided us and that other car wouldn't have stopped, I would have been buried a few years ago already. Or at least sitting in a wheelchair or so. Yet here I am, in perfect health.

Allthough it wasn't our fault, I'm more careful when driving nowadays. Apart from that, it hasn't really changed my life or changed my way of thinking about things in life.

It was more like "Bam!" then a bit of shock, not really sure about what happened, and then you just pick up your life again and carry on

Yeah, traffic is one of those everyday life or death risks we accept as a necessity. If we had a more patient and sane society, we'd have plenty more space between oncoming traffic and your own lane, and really sturdy concrete or guard rails in between. It's just more convenient to accept the risk.

It's scary to think how vulnerable we really are. If someone really wanted us dead, there's hardly anything we could do. They just catch us off-guard in broad daylight, if they wanted to.

I never really thought about this before. I mean I've always had some lingering paranoia that bad things will happen to me, I don't know why... just life experience has taught me that the next disaster is always about to strike, but there are some things even a paranoid guy like me never considered.

I'll be okay, and I'll be able to write this off as an interesting yet scary incident, but I cannot imagine how my roommate feels. Somewhere out there, someone is still running around who tried to end his life. I couldn't imagine sleeping very well after that, and I am glad he concurs that moving is a necessity right now.

This still doesn't seem real to me, but it's not like a dream either... it just feels like a disconnected reality, like I'm watching it happen but I'm not as involved in it as if it were really real. Yet I know it's all true.

I wish I could put that writing ability people claim I have to good use and express how it feels better than I am doing right now; best I can say is unless something similar has happened to a person, it's difficult to describe. It would be like describing a rainbow to someone who has always been blind. Without a common frame of reference, words fail.

Thanks for sharing your story, Andres. I appreciate hearing about your experiences, and how you've coped with it and moved on.




EDIT: It's now been about 3 hours since the incident and I would love to distract myself with things that don't matter, I think the usual escapism of watching Star Trek is in order. Thanks for talking to me everyone... I'll be back later today probably feeling much better.