December 17, 2008

Guardian angels, yes they really do exist.

I'm especially convinced after a very scary incident this morning. Last night we received several inches of snow across our area, which left our roads slippery this morning. What exacerbates the conditions of the roads is that the City of Toledo has cut back on the amount of salt they are applying to the roads because we are told there is a road salt shortage and they have to ration what they have so it lasts for the winter.

Keep this in mind as you read on...

I was on my way to work this morning during rush hour and I was traveling about 50 mph on a four lane highway, making sure that I was being careful. I didn't have my Bluetooth on, I wasn't drinking coffee; my Blackberry was tucked away into my purse.
The roads were clear of snow, but still slippery. All of a sudden some bonehead in the car to my left decided he needed to be in my lane and started merging over without a blinker, or more importantly, without checking his blind spot.

I moved over to the right to avoid being hit by him when I hit a patch of slippery road and begun swerving out of control. I had the sense to not slam onto my brakes, and as much as I tried to correct my car into the right direction, I continued to swerve back and forth, and spun into three complete revolutions across several lanes of traffic before coming to rest, inches from a guardrail. My car was perpendicular to oncoming traffic.

I don't know how many seconds I sat there, but all I could see was four lanes of traffic coming at me each time my car spun around. It was terrifying. I got off at the next exit, pulled into a parking lot and sat there for a few minutes comprehending what just happened. It is literally a miracle that I wasn't killed, either by oncoming traffic, the cars next to me, or by slamming into a guardrail. The hand of God and guardian angels was truly with me this morning.  One of my coworkers said that the Blessed Virgin Mary was on my shoulder.

Although it happened almost four hours ago, I'm still a bit shaky and can't get the images of everything spinning around me and the cars headed toward me out of my head. And I can't get past that Toledo is rationing road salt and cutting back on snow plow service.

I am very, very lucky.

Please drive carefully and be aware of what people around you are doing. Keep the Bluetooth off, sip the coffee at red lights, and  keep the cell phone off or tucked away. I know I will from now on.

And the guy who almost hit me and sent me into a tailspin...he kept going. As did everyone else.