Near Death/Accident Experiences...

[Bandana]

When I was 18 and was on one of my first road trips mi nearly dead..

Pitch black, car pon the right side of me, going 70 miles per hour... dead cow inna road!

Only by the grace of God did my car swerve to the left in time and squeeze between that center divider and the cow!

Pulled off at the next exit and shake for 15 minutes before I could get back on the road!

[WitchyOoman]

Re: Near Death/Accident Experiences...

I was left by the side of I-95 (not far from the Vine Street exit) for dead during a multi-vehicular accident, back in 1982 (or was it '83?).

Driving my Uncle Ed's brand new Oldsmobile 98 Regency. A truck next to and partway ahead of me jack-knifed when he tried to stop suddenly for the cars in front of him, one of whom's car had stalled... we were all speeding at highway speed - 55mph minimum and more likely closer to 85mph. I couldn't avoid driving underneath the jack-knifed truck, and the car behind me slammed my car in under the truck very deeply. I wasn't seatbelted, and my body flew throuhg the windshield, and eyewitnesses said that I'd bounced off of the hood of my uncle's 98 Regency, then off of the road (the highway) at least three or four or five times, before coming to rest on the highway face down and seemingly dead.

The police, Fire Rescue, firefighters, and EMS all believed me dead - and left me there. I couldn't see, but I heard everything, and wondered if I was dead. I couldn't move or speak or make a sound. I figured I must be dead.

When the coroner's van arrived to pick my body up to take me to the morgue, they discovered that I was actually still breathing. I was partway in the bodybag. They took me up Vine Street to Hahnemann Hospital (where I then worked as a rad tech). I am - or was then - the only person known to have been bagged while sstill alive and transported to a hospital E.R. by the coroner. Dunno if that's still true, though.

[Peasie]

Re: Near Death/Accident Experiences...

I was about to tell you about the time I fell from a tree and landed on my back when I was a child but, after Witchy's experience, never mind.

[f0rTyLeGz]

Re: Near Death/Accident Experiences...

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: WitchyOoman</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I was left by the side of I-95 (not far from the Vine Street exit) for dead during a multi-vehicular accident, back in 1982 (or was it '83?).

Driving my Uncle Ed's brand new Oldsmobile 98 Regency. A truck next to and partway ahead of me jack-knifed when he tried to stop suddenly for the cars in front of him, one of whom's car had stalled... we were all speeding at highway speed - 55mph minimum and more likely closer to 85mph. I couldn't avoid driving underneath the jack-knifed truck, and the car behind me slammed my car in under the truck very deeply. I wasn't seatbelted, and my body flew throuhg the windshield, and eyewitnesses said that I'd bounced off of the hood of my uncle's 98 Regency, then off of the road (the highway) at least three or four or five times, before coming to rest on the highway face down and seemingly dead.

The police, Fire Rescue, firefighters, and EMS all believed me dead - and left me there. I couldn't see, but I heard everything, and wondered if I was dead. I couldn't move or speak or make a sound. I figured I must be dead.

When the coroner's van arrived to pick my body up to take me to the morgue, they discovered that I was actually still breathing. I was partway in the bodybag. They took me up Vine Street to Hahnemann Hospital (where I then worked as a rad tech). I am - or was then - the only person known to have been bagged while sstill alive and transported to a hospital E.R. by the coroner. Dunno if that's still true, though.</div></div>
Wow! Now that IS a near-death experience! So then what happened Witchy? And nice to see you!

[WitchyOoman]

Re: Near Death/Accident Experiences...

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Peasie</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
I was about to tell you about the time I fell from a tree and landed on my back when I was a child but, after Witchy's experience, never mind.

</div></div>
Sorry.

Did I wreck the thread? Didn't mean to...


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: f0rTyLeGz</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Wow! Now that IS a near-death experience! So then what happened Witchy? And nice to see you! </div></div>
What do you mean, 40lGz?

I spent months and months in the hospital where i worked (a HORRIBLE experience)!

Everyone came up to visit me day and night - at all hours of the day/night... never mind if I was eating, getting a bed bath, or on a freakin' bedpan... all of my co-worlers and supervisors stopped by - and stayed - giving me NO PRIVACY WHATSOEVER, for the whole 5 or 6 months I was in there. It was just awful!

That's one of the reasons why I quit that job and took another at old Metropolitan Hospital (across the street from the Roundhouse), once I was back on my feet again. Dunno about now, but back in the '80s a good x-ray tech could get a high-paying job anywhere easily.
I discovered that working at Metropolitan made having certain relationships with white-shirt cops so much easier, being right across from the Roundhouse, though... so I had a better social life. lol

Um... Philly slang --
- &quot;white shirts&quot; are the cops higher up in the hierarchy - sargeants on up to Comissioner (regular patrol cops wear blue shirts)
- the Roundhouse (Philly's police HQ)
- defunct Metropolitan Hospital (in Center City, literally just across Vine Street from the roundhouse, and both of these curved 1960s buildings just a few blocks up Vine Street from Hahnemann Hospital, all are in Center City Philadelphia)


My face was ruined and rebuilt,though. I don't have my original face - it was too smashed up.

This is my high school yearbook photo (taken in early 1979; I was 17 - about 4 years before the accident):




This is me now (Febbruary 2010, right before going to Mass one winter morning this year):



Only I just recently started coloring my hair flaming red, so it's now this color:



.


I'm growing my hair, now, been growing it for the past 10 years (from short pixie). It's now 22 1/2 inches long.

[Bandana]

Re: Near Death/Accident Experiences...

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Peasie</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I was about to tell you about the time I fell from a tree and landed on my back when I was a child but, after Witchy's experience, never mind.

</div></div>

yuh see it

Wow Witchy!! what a story!

[WitchyOoman]

Re: Near Death/Accident Experiences...

It could have been much worse.
I could have been really dead. I've survived another 25 years since (even despite my five suicide attempts - all after the accident).


The only major complaint I have about it all (now) is that my pre-accident God-given face was much closer to 'perfect' than the one I now have that the surgeons gave me.

Someone (whom I know from elsewhere onlline) just ran both of my faces through a Golden Ratio Face simulator program - unno know what? - my original face was just three points out of one hundred points from 'perfect'...

Pre-accident - I needed a barely longer chin than mine, a barely less wide top of forehead at the sides, and a slightly larger/fuller lower lip... but post-accident - the face modern medicine gave me (gave me back) is five points less than the perfect hundred points. In addition to not fixing my face's original 'problems' - my nose is just off-center crooked (not consciously visible to most human eyes but noticeable in a computer line mask), my cheekbones and nose are a tad 'off' together (either my nose should be a tad narrower or my cheek broadness a tad wider), and my left eyebrow and eye sit a shade lower than the right moreso than they formerly did.
Not to mention the double chin and slight jowl that middle age has acquired for me.

You know what, though?
I'm grateful to be alive, for starters. And so what if I'm only 95% perfect on the human beauty scale, instead of 97% perfect on that scale?

Mr Witchy married me anyhow, didn't he?
And I've never lacked for male interest, either... even with the extra weight I carry.


So I had a near-death experience. I'm still here to talk about it, aren't I? shrug