I stopped to buy gas on my way home from work Tuesday night, because Toney was planning to use my car the next day. Her Honda is still in the shop, and we’re juggling two vehicles between three people. So, I filled up the tank, and noticed the glowing golden arches across the street…
Should I do it? Should I load two or three cheeseburgers into my mouth with the heel of my hand, or just go home and have a bowl of Corn Flakes? I knew the latter option would be the healthier one, but that’s not the kind of thing that carries a lot of influence in my world. And, three minutes later I was in line at McDonald’s, behind four(!) other cars, at 2:30 in the morning. I have a feeling I was the only sober one in the bunch.
I ordered two burgers with no pickles, and it took longer than my inner-sensors told me it should. Special orders at fast food places are always an iffy proposition, but I’ve gotten myself into trouble trying to remove pickles from a burger while driving; a cop pulled me over a few years ago, and gave me a full-blown drunk test. So, I sat there and waited for them to prepare my pickle-free order.
Eventually, I re-entered I-81 and began scarfing down the fast food goodness. Oniony! A few miles up the road I noticed vehicles in front of me hitting their brakes. They weren’t stopping, they were just slowing down. And when I got there, I saw some disturbing shit.
In the median, to my left, was a tractor trailer on its side. Smoke was pouring out of the thing, and it felt like it had just happened. Like seconds before. Further along was a lot of debris, and the road was covered in all sorts of broken plastic, and whatnot. It was crunching beneath my tires as I drove over it.
Other people were stopping, and running to help. I wondered if I should do the same, but knew I didn’t have a lot to offer. During an emergency there’s not much call for a guy who stands in the back and makes pithy comments. So, I just kept on going.
It was scary, though. It looked bad, and had happened so recently the cops and fire trucks hadn’t even arrived. Interstate 81 is one of the worst roads I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve encountered a lot of roads.
I went home and had the bowl of Corn Flakes anyway, and crawled into bed. When I got up I saw that I had two missed calls from Steve. And there was a text message from Toney, saying she was glad I was OK.
Weird, I thought. But whatever. I flopped down in front of my computer, and my phone rang. It was Steve, again. What the shit? I answered it, and he said, “Oh good, you’re not dead.”
Apparently the wreck was worse than I knew – a double fatality – and shut down the interstate for hours. It was all over the news, and was a big, big deal. And I’d been right there, moments after it happened. Here’s an article about it, with some amazing photos. Freaky, man.
It makes me wonder… If I hadn’t ordered those burgers with no pickles, and gotten my sack o’ fat quicker, would I have been involved in the crash? It’s certainly possible. My hatred of the fast food pickle might’ve saved me. Tiny little decisions like that can change the entire course of a person’s life. Ya know?
My condolences to everyone involved in that crash. It was horrifying.
What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen while driving? I know this is kinda morbid, but let’s go with it anyway. Have you witnessed any spectacular roadway carnage, or anything of the sort? If so, please tell us about it.
Also, can you remember making any seemingly inconsequential decisions that might’ve led to you averting a crisis?
Next time I’ll tell you about Toney’s hospitalized car, and how I managed to piss off the manager of a muffler shop so badly we’ll never be able to return there. Heh.
Have a great day, my friends.
Now playing in the bunker
Use the Surf Report’s webhost: HostGator!
Horrible things, several deaths
and holy crap i was first
Damn pickles….third.
I was at the McDonald’s across the street from where you work. There’s a crusty old white guy who works there in the middle of the night who sounds EXACTLY like a crusty old black guy.
I saw that thing on my way in, around 3:45. UGLY.
I once passed an fatal accident scene where a couple of bodies were still laid out on the roadway with sheets over them. In my mind I can still see someone’s bare feet sticking out from one end. Still makes me shudder to this day. Apparently their car left the roadway and managed to get flipped over and have a guardrail slice into the roof of the car like a can opener. Seemed like a high rate of speed was necessary to pull that off. I read in the paper the next day that one of the victims was decapitated. Another shudder.
Not quite on the roads, but about 10 years ago I was on the Staten Island Ferry boat that crashed where teh captain was high on pain killers. This is the one where people were literally cut in half.
I wasn’t on the boat that trip, but the trip before it. When I got home I turned on the TV and it was all over the news….
Crazygonuts.
“Charles Brown, 62, of Sugarloaf”
Do they mean, from the band Sugarloaf? The ones who sang “Green Eyed Lady”? I’m confused. A peanuts character, from a 70’s one-hit-wonder, driving a tractor-trailer in PA in the middle of the night.
That van was way f’d up.
My wife can’t figure out why I’m laughing like an idiot. Mostly, it’s because I’m an idiot, but that comment made my night.
I’m justglad my wife is on vacation 4000 miles away and can’t hear me laughing like an idiot. But Jason, I agree, most wives think of husbands as idiots.
Why was the minivan stopped in the middle of the highway?? I know what you mean Jeff, a few months back I dropped my daughter off at school and intead of going straight to the gym like I always do, I went home because my stomach wasn’t feeling good. I ended up going to the gym about an hour later and passed a car literally wrapped around a telephone pole, I guess it happened right around the time I would have been on the road. 2 teenagers in the car, speeding, failed to navigate a turn. They didn’t hit anyone else, somehow they lived but were all messed up.
I saw a compact car with 4 people in it just a few seconds after it t-boned an SUV that has turned left in front of it. There was blood all over the people and the windows, but I think the most memorable thing was the position the people were in. Their arms were up in the air, or looped back behind their heads or stuffed up on the dashboard.
Later TV reports said the 4 were on their way home from a funeral. The driver of the SUV was a woman texting on her phone. Charges were brought, but I never saw the results.
When I was a kid, my mom and I spent 45 minutes in a dead-stop traffic jam, which we soon discovered was caused by a multiple-vehicle pile-up. When the traffic began to move again, we passed the scene of the wreck, which was still being cleaned up. It was winter, and much of the snow around the mangled vehicles was covered in blood. Didn’t see any bodies, but it was still a sobering sight for a 7 year old. We later learned it was a double fatality wreck.
“Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding /
Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind”
I have to admit, I feel slightly proud of myself for knowing you’re quoting Jim Morrison.
Only loosely related to the question, but I’ll tell it anyway. My husband has a close friend who’s a firefighter. He keeps a regular-looking photo album on his coffee table. The first few pages of pictures are the usual: snaps of his kids, holidays, etc. The rest are all pictures of horrible accident scenes he’s been called to. It’s no joke to innocently flip through a family photo album and come across a dismembered motorcycle accident victim. Sheez Louise!
My uncle was a locomotive engineer, and kept a similar scrapbook with newspaper clippings of grade crossing accidents he’d been involved in. In a 30-odd year railroad career he had at least 15 events where motorists chose to ignore the flashing lights or decided to drive around gates right in front of the speeding freight he was running. Most of them led to fatalities. And there wasn’t a thing he could do.
Passed a wreck years ago on the DC beltway that hadn’t quite been ‘covered up,’ so much so that some dud’es head was still visible under the sheet that’d been thrown over it. No body (that was 50 feet or so away), just the head.
I also know what it sounds like when someone commits suicide by Amtrak. And how far to goo spray goes.
Good Evening Surf Reporters…
One day coming home from college, on Interstate 81 as well, witnessed a deer jump out in front of a speeding tractor trailer.
It was instantly vaporized. Just a gigantic spray of blood and fur and bones and guts and chunks of meat everywhere.
The stain / skid mark it left on the highway was there for months afterwards.
Oops, not I-81, Interstate 80 in PA
America’s number one highway for vaporized deer!
Can’t, offhand, think of a situation where a decision allowed me to bypass a potential catastrophe, but I do recall a minor decision that allowed to experience a catastrophe or sorts. I had an appointment to go view an apartment to rent that I knew I was not going to rent as I had checked it out before and it looked like a dump. I was due to meet the owner at about 7pm on a cold winter night after work. I called to see if she was going to be there,as I wanted to get out of doing it. She was already there and since it was only two minutes from my current residence, I decided to be courteous since she was waiting for me and NOT to blow her off. I drove over to the house and looked at the place and then left. On the way down the ice- and snow covered front stairs, I slipped and fell, breaking my ankle in three places, shattering one of the key areas of my ankle. I think I blanked out and was in shock, because I forgot I had a cell phone in my pocket and could have called an myself an ambulance. When I saw my ankle dangling from my leg, I kind of freaked out and just started screaming. So, the decision to go ahead and view a place I knew I wasn’t going to rent in a hundred years, cost me a broken ankle and I was out of work until about May. One of the worst years of my life – it was the same year as the Crash. Should have gone with my gut feeling all the way around.
Sorry for the minor errors, I didn’t proofread before I sent.
Our neighbor is a state trooper who’s route is to patrol a section of the PA turnpike. Told me a story once about having to report to an accident site at the Pocono exit….a guy fell asleep at the wheel there and wrapped his car around a huge light pole for the interchange. Killed he and his wife(neither wearing seatbelts). The neighbor talked about having to search the area for the guys head as he decapitated himself when he hit the pole. That sight still haunts our neighbor, even with all the gruesome traffic fatalities he’s been at.
On the 210 in Southern California, I saw a car that had been hit by a cement truck on an overpass. The truck fell off the overpass, onto the busy freeway below and the car burst into flame. I saw it about a minute after it happened, before the fire department and medics could show up and saw the person in the front seat, knocked out and on fire. Found out the next day that the truck driver had a heart attack on the wheel, and drove out of control and rear ended the car before going overboard. Nobody in either vehicle survived, and it was creepy at twelve years old seeing a body on fire.
About three years ago during rush hour traffic some moron tried to run across the interstate. He didn’t make it. I passed by about 1 minute later, no ambulances or cops yet but people were standing around. As I drove by at about 25 miles an hour I noticed that people were standing around a person lying by the side of the road who was missing the top part of his head. I was still trying to come to grips with what I saw for miles after. Chilling.
About 15 years ago, three friends and myself were on the way home after a day of golf. We were on a secondary road out in the middle of nowhere and came to where it intersected a state highway. This was out in the country and there weren’t any streetlights or houses. It was about 11:30 at night and slightly foggy. As we got closer, we could see people wondering around the intersection in the pitch dark ahead of us. At first we thought they might just be some teenagers fooling around. We got closer and could see in the headlights that most of them were very young kids, they were all Amish, and there was debris all over the intersection. Very creepy. We came to a stop, grabbed a couple flashlights and went to see what had happened. About fifty feet to the left of the intersections was a van on it’s side, smoke coming from the engine. On the other side of the intersection in the high grass was a car, front end smashed all to hell. There were still people in the van (which we couldn’t believe considering how many people were wondering around.) Two of my friends started helping the rest of them out while my other friend and myself went to check on the car. It was an old couple, who were still sitting in their car. They were in shock and didn’t even know what had happened so we told them to just stay put while we started rounding up the kids wandering around. It was dark, foggy, you could hear kids crying but couldn’t see them. At that time, only one of us had a working cellphone and he couldn’t get service. After about 10 minutes, a semi came along. He radioed for help and the state police showed up pretty quick. Apparently, the van, which was transporting three Amish families home from the nearest Wal-Mart, was on its way back and the old couple had blown the stop sign and hit them at full speed. Luckily, no one had died, there were only a few broken bones, no serious injuries – amazing when we found out that only the two people in the front seat of the van were wearing seat belts. Very very eerie scene and if we had been a minute or two earlier, we might have been a part of it.
Before I took my current job with a local law enforcement agency, i did some observation time with an officer on the road–during that saw a guy in chunks after he jumped off a bridge on to the top of a moving semi and was crushed under the rear wheels and spit out into a small pile of person and lots of pink mist. They found his wallet about 200 feet down the road, and his head in some bushes about 50 feet off the road. Not a pretty sight, especially for the girlfriend on top of the bridge he was previously fighting with and screaming at. The only other one was a church van off I-95 in Georgia that was hit by a semi–no survivors out of the two drivers and 14 passengers. Not a good day on the road–lots of white sheets on that one.
I think I’ve heard that story before… weird.
That was awful though.
I know you’ve heard both of those, because I’ve told you them live and in person.
This one is just spooky. We were driving back from my brother’s house Christmas night many years ago. We always take the same route, so I know it like the back of my hand.
Next day I’m watching the news and I see a story where a person fired randomly into another car, killing the young wife. I did my quick calculations and figured I was in the spot where it happened about two minutes beforehand.
yeah Jeff, I actually stopp at a wreck and got Hepatits C from doing unprotected CPR on the guy. Really people, try to take the time out to take a first aid/CPR class. Yeah, I’m dying slowly, but I’d do it all over again even knowing I lost the guy I resucited and loaded him into the meat wagon. I was totally not as scary as the woman I pulled out of a flaming car 6 months later.
Do what you can. Yeah, the hardest part is to just get moving. After that, it all comes into place.
Yeah, I’m the most selfish, sarcastic bastard ever, but I do go out of my way to be nice to people and save people. Ironic, huh?
Oh, and JK lemme write a guest post sometime. Where is oldest Secret going to college? My oldest is back again in Clark’s Summit this year.
Not me but famously Seth McFarlane was late for his flight on 9-11. I think it was the second plane to hit the towers. Pretty sure he was in the airport and they pulled that “I’m sorry sir but the door has been closed already.” crap on him.
Did you read the comments on the article. It’s amazing how ignorant people can get. I’m surprised it hasn’t turned racist somehow. That happens with every article in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, etc.
Mid 1950’s, I was 7 or 8 and saw a young couple and their baby killed in an auto accident. My uncle stopped to help and yelled at us to stay in the car, but you know kids…left quite an impression. Think I was the only one not chomping at the bit to get my driver’s license in high school.
Whoa, spooky.
Last week I missed being involved in a crash by 2 or 3 minutes. A dump truck smeared a car, that was evidently driving to the truck’s left, into the central crash barrier on the Rt-1 bypass near Media. If I had not stopped FOR A MCDONALD’S (!) I would likely have been there at the time it happened, no doubt in the left lane. I was saved by a pair of Sausage & Egg McMuffins.
And people say McDonald’s is bad for your health. Not compared with dump truck smearing it’s not.
I know that area,I went to penncrest
If you’re ever back here, I strongly suggest stopping at the McDonald’s by the mall and buying 2 sausage and egg McMuffins before you get on the Rt-1 bypass towards 476. If they’ve stopped serving breakfast you should wait there until the next day.
Actually, after having rescued several people, the worst I ever saw was a guy who flipped his 280-Z onto the side of the Freeway. When I reached him he was jabbering, “My car, my car, I’ve ruind my car!” I went back to the car, and there was his girlfriend DEAD in the passenger seat. Man, it was straightline, and the CPR we performed didn’t bring her back. Just kinda wished I had strangled the boyfriend, but I realized he was way into shock.
But on the plus side, I picked up a David Bowie “Let’s Dance” cassete that had been ejected out of his car and listened to it all the way to Great Falls, Montana.
I drive back roads to work and at the end of the main one people tend to park for the train station. One morning I saw an ambulance and a couple of cop cars and when I passed, they were tending to a man with blood dripping down his face. A goddamn tree fell onto the roof of his car. I don’t know if he was dead or alive but the top of his car was crushed.
My husband and I had planned to go to Trader Joe’s one day a couple years ago, but we decided at the last minute not to go. We would have been on a road called Washington Blvd. had we gone. The road was shortly thereafter flooded out by a sudden torrential rainstorm, killing 4 people. I still get the heebs whenever we drive on that road.
http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/local/mom-children-among-4-killed-in-washington-blvd-flo/nDXmn/
As far as witnessing accidents, I once saw a trainwreck in slow motion, aka Super Bowl XXXIX.
I remember that like it was yesterday. Thag woman and her kids drowned in their minivan. Canoe’s floating over top of the cars under the water and didn’t know they were there. So tragic.
I know! And what’s their solution for it?! Gates. Fucking gates! So what do you do if you’re already on there and they decide the gates should come down? Hope all the traffic clears in time before the water rises? They’re doing construction down there right now and things are getting backed up worse than usual on that road. Oy, no thanks!
Okay…sickest thing I ever did. When I was in the Air Force in a small sqaudron back in the late 1970’s, it somehow became my job to recruit people for the volleyball team. Sooooo….I got this old, 1950’s picture of from the squads “driver safety” briefing of this woman dead, bloody, and hanging out of a 1940’s car. I weroxed it, turned it upside down (or right side up) and drew a volleyball in her hands. Sick, yeah, but that’s why we’re here.
Commuted between Portland and Brunswick Maine on Interstate 295 one winter. The highway is next to the salt water and exposed to crosswinds. So naturally everyone goes like bats out of hell. Seeing cars off the road and upside down was a common occurrence….one time it was an 18 Wheeler.
Another, earlier, time I was commuting to work in the town where I lived and saw a motorcycle off the road and two piles of clothing in the road. The motor cycle had literally cut a woman in half as she tried to cross the road to get to her mailbox…
Thankfully there were no fatalities but I watched a Honda Accord hit a spare tire that was rolling down the highway in Atlanta at about 50mph. The front end of the car popped up so high we could see the entire underbody, and then it did a nose dive blowing all the airbags and shooting that white powder out the windows. Pretty wild.
The loss of life is tragic but stopping and backing up on a freeway at 2:30 in the morning is worth a nod for a Darwin Award.
I was a volunteer firefighter on the last island before key west.I went to at least three car wrecks a week. every drunk leaving key west wrecked their car there.
Saw a car full of hispanics turn left at the wrong time. The car was about five cares in front of me, and fortunately the speed on the road was relatively low (probably about 40-45 mph). The left-turner got t-boned and ended up on his side, sliding about 10 ft and staying there.
Like Jeff, I drove by with my mouth opened since I wouldn’t have been much help. Now that I am CPR and first aid trained I never see any accidents!
Last week I had to visit a client 40 miles away. On the way there, I saw not one but two 5-car pileups on the Beltway. Then there was a 3-car on the way home at almost the same spot (near Andrews for those keeping score).
A few months ago I was leaving DC via I-66. Just over the bridge, before the Rosslyn tunnel, there was a crowd of emergency vehicles blocking the left couple of lanes. As I oozed past, I saw a twisted motorcycle and a dude sitting on the pavement with his back leaning against the Jersey barrier.
Last one: in the 1980s, while driving from NY to DC in the middle of the night, I saw a car on fire in the median strip of the NJ Turnpike. Of course I stopped and took a picture, as one does. Weeks later, after getting the film developed, I noticed that there was a previously-unseen guy standing there watching it burn.
.
Did he have horns and a pitchfork?
RIP J. J. Cale; heart attack yesterday. Although I liked his song ‘Cocaine’, I never much cared for actual cocaine.
.
So that was why David Lindley was going on about JJ at the show that night. RIP JJ. Bless you Mr Dave.