- Joined
- 3 Feb 2002
- Messages
- 10,574
As some of you know my family and I were going to drive from Minneapolis to Calgary.
We had travelled around 600 miles and were going to stay at a Best Western in Regina to rest overnight and continue the rest of the trip.
We were on the highway and about 15-20 minutes from Regina. My dad had slowed down the van because we were looking at the sign to see the road we had to turn next into.
I was actually asleep and I woke up to the shriek of my dad. The look on his face I'll never forget. It was of utter horror. He had lost control of the car and it was spinning across to the other lane with traffic heading our way.
That split second there I was too horrified to look in front out of the windshield as the other lane was busy with other traffic, especially semi trucks. Thankfully the car kept on slipping sideways and we managed to not to get hit with on coming traffic.
We then hit a fence, the air bags popped, the windshield broken. Luckily no one got hurt, hardly a bruise. Though my dad had some little cuts on his arm from the glass.
Then I was scared further as there was a sizzling sound and smoke coming from the engine, which we later realized was just some snow that had gotten into the engine.
If I had any doubts to whether my dad was okay, they were quickly put away as he quickly called 911 which meant he was still alert. A cop was there in 10 mins.
He was kind enough to drive up to Best Western and call a tow truck.
Basically, we were extremely lucky that nothing more serious happened. It could have been so much worse. This was one of those life changing experiences.
We flew in this morning from Regina to Calgary.
A weird part about the whole story is that my grandma (dad's side) had called us about two hours earlier when we were on the road because she felt worried about us. We explained to her that everything was going to be fine...and then of course the accident happened.
Experiences like these make you realize that so many things we worry about are meaningless. Spend time with your family this holiday season and cherish it, because as I learned, it has the potential to all be taken away in a split second.
P.S. We managed to find the place where it happened through Google Earth. Red X is where it started, blue X is where we ended up landing. The road in the middle had traffic coming in the opposite direction, and thankfully the road farthest left basically had no traffic.
We had travelled around 600 miles and were going to stay at a Best Western in Regina to rest overnight and continue the rest of the trip.
We were on the highway and about 15-20 minutes from Regina. My dad had slowed down the van because we were looking at the sign to see the road we had to turn next into.
I was actually asleep and I woke up to the shriek of my dad. The look on his face I'll never forget. It was of utter horror. He had lost control of the car and it was spinning across to the other lane with traffic heading our way.
That split second there I was too horrified to look in front out of the windshield as the other lane was busy with other traffic, especially semi trucks. Thankfully the car kept on slipping sideways and we managed to not to get hit with on coming traffic.
We then hit a fence, the air bags popped, the windshield broken. Luckily no one got hurt, hardly a bruise. Though my dad had some little cuts on his arm from the glass.
Then I was scared further as there was a sizzling sound and smoke coming from the engine, which we later realized was just some snow that had gotten into the engine.
If I had any doubts to whether my dad was okay, they were quickly put away as he quickly called 911 which meant he was still alert. A cop was there in 10 mins.
He was kind enough to drive up to Best Western and call a tow truck.
Basically, we were extremely lucky that nothing more serious happened. It could have been so much worse. This was one of those life changing experiences.
We flew in this morning from Regina to Calgary.
A weird part about the whole story is that my grandma (dad's side) had called us about two hours earlier when we were on the road because she felt worried about us. We explained to her that everything was going to be fine...and then of course the accident happened.
Experiences like these make you realize that so many things we worry about are meaningless. Spend time with your family this holiday season and cherish it, because as I learned, it has the potential to all be taken away in a split second.
P.S. We managed to find the place where it happened through Google Earth. Red X is where it started, blue X is where we ended up landing. The road in the middle had traffic coming in the opposite direction, and thankfully the road farthest left basically had no traffic.