I heard of life slowing down in moments of great stress. I recently experienced this phenomenon.

I was driving to a frequent Friday night Folk Music Club with my wife, where about 450 of my closest friends gathered to visit and enjoy great music. When we arrived at a T intersection, I wasn’t more than a few hundred metres from our home. We travelled at about 60 km an hour across the top of the T with the green light.

Then things started to s l  o   w   d     o      w       n.

A large black F150 pickup truck was approaching from the other side of the T, wanting to make a left turn across my direction of travel. I don’t know why, but he ignored my presence and just turned left.

I remember catching a glimpse of a huge silver grill from the driver’s side window, then silence. Not a sound.

My head leaned toward the left very, very slowly but without making contact with the glass window. Then, my head very gently returned to the upright position. I remember thinking that it all happened in such a gentle way.

BANG! Dust and dirt flew around outside the car. The car was still in motion, but I wasn’t sure which direction.

I turned the wheel frantically toward the skid; that was the rule I recalled then.

Silence and settling dust.

I asked my wife if she was okay. She responded coherently. We seemed to be at a bit of an angle and facing the road traffic in the right direction. I pulled ahead a few metres, and the car straightened. We came to rest in the lane I had started in.

I stepped out of the car, and the driver of the F150 was moving himself out of the intersection. He pulled up just ahead of me.

I won’t relate all the common experiences of sharing information, police reports, insurance, etc., but I will reflect on the few seconds of the accident and give it some thought now that two weeks have passed.

I am so, so grateful for technology – and luck.

My wife had some aches and soreness from her lower back to her shoulders. These have disappeared at the time of writing this Bog. To date, I have not felt any aches, pains or any sign of discomfort. The gentle left and right movement of my head was actually me hitting the side airbags that exploded in a split second – all violent actions in a moment of time. I was spared hearing or at least recalling this sound.

An aside, the airbag light on the dash had been coming on for no apparent reason. We put it down to a faulty light. But months before, we decided to have our mechanic check the airbags, just to be sure. He found that some rust had formed that might have prevented the bags from going off. He cleaned that up, and the light didn’t come on again.

Our thanks to my most favourite mechanic in the world.

Thanks to the skilled researchers dedicated to making cars safer, the professional standards that important people uphold, and just plain old luck- there wasn’t a scratch on the driver’s door; all damage was on the rear door, back panel, rims, and tires.

Please give this a bit of a think. Do you have a potential life-altering experience or one that had that potential? What was it like for you to do the mental work to move past it?

I am curious about your thoughts. Please comment below or send me an email with your bit of a think.

Photo by Usman Malik on Unsplash

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glenn.walmsley@icloud.com