Crash photos

So, back to the crash...

So we've stopped moving, there was a crashing of glass, and then nothing, just the light sound of the engine roaring above us. I dreaded to look, but had to know whether or not I had killed Adam. My head snapped right at the same time his snapped left and we both said "Are you all right? Yeah!"

I started reaching for my cellphone and realized, you know, maybe we should get OUT of the upside down van first. I reached for my seatbelt, realized I had broken glass everywhere below me, and tried to situate myself so I wouldn't fall on my face. At this point I realize the airbags never went off, and say so. In fact, I couldn't STOP saying what was coming into my head. I babbled about hoping my seatbelt would come undone, babbled about hoping the door would open... you get the point.

I did manage to get the door open, though it took some pushing, and I hear Adam behind me say "I'm following you!" I stepped out, a few feet below the edge of the road to an incredulous Andy. "Are you guys all right?" Behind me Adam is struggling to get through the small space we could open the door. "Yeah, yeah, shut up," he says. It takes Adam a few seconds, but we get out and practically run up onto the road. We stand there for a few more seconds, staring at the remains of my first car, before all we can do is start laughing. Adam and I hug, and I realize I should probably turn off the car. I run down, turn it off, and struggle for a minute trying to take out the keys before finally giving up.

It starts to rain at about this time, and I call Bridget and tell her I wrecked the van. Andy gives his wife directions to where we are, and they come down. I call 911, and Andy gives more directions and they send the Highway Patrol.

Andy at some point is telling us about watching our headlights disappear, and makes the comment, "You guys don't know how scared I was." Adam and I, in unison, tell him "Yes, we do!" A group hug ensues. It's about this point we notice the ring on Adam's face, and the bloody lips he gave himself protecting his face from glass.

Nothing much else eventful happened; the cop didn't even get out of his car, just told me he wouldn't file a report because then he'd have to file a charge, and all that would do is raise my insurance. The wrecker was impressed by the wreck, and then we drove home.

And, as promised, pictures; click the picture for larger versions:

This is where we initially went off the road; you can see the scrape marks starting near the top, and the tire track on the right.

The scraping is much more evident here; the night of the accident, it was quite fresh. You can see the height of the road as compared to the shoulder, also.

This is the small concrete barricade that prevented us from flying off into a gully. It was maybe 5 inches tall, but it did its job fantastically well, let me tell you. The sign was not there when we hit; you can see the fresh break in the concrete where we did hit, though.

A view all the way down the barricade. We scraped down the side of this, as witnessed by the tire track all the way down.

This is that gully we nearly ended up in. Concrete barricade, I love you. Forget Bridget; will you marry me?

We tore through some bamboo, flipped, and came to rest here, upside down, passenger side against that tree. The scattered trash probably fell from the van when the wrecker service hauled it out of the ditch.

This is a close up of the tree; you can see that most of the bark has been stripped from it. The passenger side sliding door ended up on the other side of the tree. The rear passenger tire exploded when it hit the tree.

And this, ladies and gents, is what the van looked like afterward. Doesn't look so bad from the front...

... but from the side, you can see the damage. The clump of dirt there is from the wrecker service dragging the van out of the ditch. Speaking of ditch, notice the one on top of the van?

Close up of the windshield. Yeah, that's what me and Adam were looking at when we stopped moving. Thankfully, the dashboard protected us from landing on most of it.

A view of the passenger side as they're loading it up to haul it to the junkyard. Notice that the sliding door is INSIDE the van. The wrecker service picked it up from the other side of earlier tree.

A view through the missing back window. Gives a good idea of the amount of crumpling the roof did. That's where we found most of our stuff: on the ceiling. Or thrown out various windows. Kent's CD player went out the back.

Here we are - the survivors. I'm gonna have a print of this made and framed.