So, my mom and I packed up our two cars to head off to camp for the week. We were going to take one, but since the dog takes up half mine, there wasn't enough room for all our stuff, so we brought hers too. Her new car, it's only like two months old. I don't know the way, so I was following her. We ran errands around town (including washing both cars, in hopes that the waxy finish would help keep the pitch from sticking), and then headed on our way.
Half an hour down the road…
I'm singing along to the radio and periodically looking back at Dora, to make sure she's fine in the back seat, when I look up to see the car in the oncoming lane start to cross the yellow lines right in front of my mom. My heart starts beating faster as I see my mom going into the breakdown lane and the sedan KEEPS GOING.
Now, they're coming at me.
I start to go into the left lane, where they should have been (realizing later that there were cars coming there, too), but then the sedan finally sees where they are, and jerk back to their lane. Seeing them coming at me, again, I jump back to my own lane, in time to see my mom…
Driving into the ditch.
I swerve to the side of the road (Dora I'm sure was impressed with all this jerking around. She seemed to be fine though), slam on the brakes and come to a stop. I could barely put it in park, turn it off and get out of my seat belt before I was out of the car.
I took off running, screaming "MOOOMMM!!!" (well, screeching I think would be more accurate). Her car was tipped enough in the ditch that gravity didn't want the door to open, and I fumbled with the handle to get it open. I'm still screaming "mom" while my mom's trying to yell "I'm fine, I'm fine!"
It wasn't until she was out of the car and I could see that she was walking and unscathed that I think I started breathing again.
The people who were behind the swerving car (which at this point was long gone) had pulled over to make sure we were ok, and one of the women had gotten out. Mom used her phone to call the police, and we talked a bit about what happened until she called AAA for a tow.
Apparently, they'd been following the sedan for awhile, and the driver had been swerving a lot.
The left, and within 10 minutes, three other people had stopped (I love living in a small area in Maine. People are nice). One truck had stopped, I think to see if we needed a tow (I don't quite remember… I think for whatever job he had he was also obligated to check for oil spills). They left, and then a van and a woman in a pick up stopped, to make sure we were ok, and then the woman also was EMT/CAN trained, and was obligated to stop and make sure people were ok. Plus, she said she could tow us out, but not until the police had come because they'd want to know everything that happened she said. She had quite a few things to say about the police…
They were both still there when the cop showed up, and the woman starts in with "You're here, so I'm leaving, I was just obligated to stop." And of course, he has no idea what's going on, so if I were him I'd be suspicious too. So he got her name and date of birth, which she wasn't impressed with because she wasn't involved, but she gave it to him. Then she left and he asked the other guy who he was and he said nobody, just stopped to make sure we were ok. The cop asked if he witnessed anything, which the guy didn't so he said no, so the cop said the guy could go, which he did.
We gave the cop the run down of what happened, gave witness statements (they'd gotten another call about the driver and they knew who it was and I think would be able to catch them, so our statements would help charge them with driving to endangerment and stuff). Dora, of course, tried to chew his fingers when he reached in the window to pet her, but not hard (when another cop showed up later, the first one told him to beware of the vicious dog ;-) haha). She got towed out, got some grass taken off, and we were off again.
This was the first time I'd been this close to an accident before, so it was a bit of a scare for me (my best friend and I came upon an accident my step-mom was in about 5 minutes after it happened [and before police showed up] but that's been it).
It could, however, have been much worse.
See how close she got to the culvert?
If she'd gone a foot farther and down over the edge of that, it would have been bad news bears, though mostly for her car. There was also a telephone pole that she passed feet from that could have caused a much bigger problem.
But, all is well. We had a couple deep breathing hugs (the tow truck guy said I must be related to her, because he didn't get a hug like that haha), and were both unscathed. Well, I made my already weak ankle sore from jumping out of the car and bolting, but it'll be fine.
The rest of the road trip was much less eventful haha. That was perfectly fine with both of us.
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