Have you ever had a near death experience?
Anne Marie
Sidney, actually I have; I suspect that most people who drive very much on our interstate highways have too.
But since you’ve given me the chance I’ll relate mine. While several things had gone wrong, they quickly turned around and about everything went right.
One winter day, just after a snowfall which the night before had covered everything in white, I was driving on a county road heading toward my construction site at the time. The roads were slippery and the county highway department hadn’t made it to the road I was on as yet. I had no really good reason to be in a hurry, so I was driving perhaps 35 mph when I passed from behind an airplane hanger which had blocked my view towards my right for a long distance.
As I passed the hanger there was a single house close to a railroad track with a barn outbuilding near and sitting parallel to the track about a hundred feet from the Co. road. A mailbox belonging to the house was next to the road on my right, and just beyond the mailbox there was nothing else for about 30 feet and then the RR tracks which were crossing at an angle of more than 90 degrees.
At that instant from behind the barn came a railroad locomotive going at about the same speed I was, at least 35 miles per hour.
It was instantly clear that our paths would cross at more or less the same moment, and I was too close to the tracks to stop, even if there had been no snow on the ground.
Seeing my only choice, I took it, making a gradual right turn which knocked the mailbox off its post, and then made a slow gradual right hand turn that had to be just right for my car to not go into a skid, If I had, I would have slid straight into the path of the train, or into the side of it under its wheels, which by then roared as loudly as a the proverbial tornado. The Engineer and conductor were standing in the door of the locomotive watching my fate unfold.
Somehow my tires gripped through the snow onto a layer of cinders which the owners of the property were “paving” their driveway with. I was able to execute a perfect turn that carried me parallel and no more than 10 feet from the tracks on my driver’s side. Even after making the turn, my speed carried me another fifty feet before I could come to a stop without skidding, while the train continued to roar past me now no more than 8 or ten feet away.
I got out of my car, put on my carpenter’s tool belt and picked up the mailbox, and I was able to re-attach it to the post with minimal damage. The owners of the house came out to congratulate me on my good luck, and thank me for putting back their mailbox.
So who do I turn to? I turn to myself, but I have no problem whatsoever with those who turn to prayer or to their god. When I told my brother about my near miss he said the “good lord was looking out for
you,” which got no comment from me.
