This page was exported from King Weekly Sentinel [ https://kingsentinel.com ] Export date:Sat Nov 23 20:16:22 2024 / +0000 GMT ___________________________________________________ Title: Lucky to be alive --------------------------------------------------- Two years ago on Boxing Day, as I stopped for a right turn at Keele and Davis, I watched a wheel come flying off a dump truck barrelling eastbound on the highway. It came bounding toward my car like a mad buffalo. In the second I had, I wondered if it might veer off. It didn't. At the last moment I ducked. The sound of crunching metal and shattering glass told me I was alive. I shut the engine off, kicked the driver's side door open, stepped out and called 911, who misunderstood and sent a fire truck. In the twilight zone of shock, time stops. Everything happens at once. I was a bit high on being alive. The woman who stopped told me she had seen the dump truck pull over some distance further west, but then disappear. A young man gave me not one, but two bottles of water. The friendly EMIs pulled the broken glass out of my scalp, but I declined a hospital visit. It was a bit of a street celebration. We could all see the wheel lying against the fence about a football field past my car. The police arrived, took a report and reluctantly drove me home when I asked, because I lived nearby. My car was totalled and written off. My follow-up call to the police informed me that they had not located the truck and had closed the case. I am sorry now that I did not push harder, because two years later, I am subject to migraines that I had never had before, and neck ache. What I would say to anyone in a similar situation is to follow through with both a thorough medical exam in hospital, perhaps a lawyer, and also with the police. It leaves a bad feeling that had I died, my situation might have been taken more seriously. Seems the squeaky wheel really does get the grease: the negligence of owners and operators be policed and ended. Dorita Peer Kettleby --------------------------------------------------- Images: --------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Post date: 2016-02-24 10:02:03 Post date GMT: 2016-02-24 15:02:03 Post modified date: 2016-05-31 15:46:13 Post modified date GMT: 2016-05-31 19:46:13 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Export of Post and Page as text file has been powered by [ Universal Post Manager ] plugin from www.gconverters.com