The Author as a 6th Grader
I’ve been struck by a car going 35-40 miles per hour and lived to tell about it. Most kids eleven years old don’t survive to tell such a tale. Too many of them aren’t talked too enough to know they can prevent it by having a little fear.
The other day I was driving out of my neighborhood, past my local elementary. A young girl was walking on the sidewalk in front of me to my left. A car was parked on the right sidewalk and appeared to have people in it. I noticed all this as I was approaching. I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck and took my foot off the accelerator. Suddenly, without warning, without looking the little girl turned from the sidewalk directly into the street and directly into my path. She was walking to the car. Fortunately, I’d sensed this might happen. Though I was prepared for it, I still needed to quickly, firmly apply my brakes and screeched to a stop. My 7000-pound Chevy Avalanche skidded. I was only driving about 20 miles per hour. The little girl crossed in front of me and never looked up at me. She was about 3 feet from the grill of my truck.
As has happened too many times I was instantly transported back 37 years to January 5, 1976. The day I was almost killed doing something very similar to that unknowing little girl.
When I was 11 years old my older brother and I shared a Seattle Times paper route. Back then the Times was an afternoon paper and we took turns delivering the daily news to the residents around Crossroads in Bellevue, Washington. January 5 was a cold and rainy night. As is the norm at that time of year in the Northwest it was dark by 4:30pm.
I was returning home from my route. I’d made it a regular practice to ride my bike through the Crossroads Shopping Center parking lot in making the 2 mile ride home following my delivery of the papers. I’d also made it a habit to cross 4-lane NE 8th Street about 100-yards from the traffic light…and nearest cross walk. It was the first Monday following what was then called the Christmas vacation. So more people were at work that day and at that time coming home. I waited and waited for a clearing in the traffic in order to cross the busy street. It seemed like an eternity.
In being a little impatient, I saw a small opening and began pedaling my ten-speed across the street as I had done a-hundred times before. I quickly knew I’d made a bad decision. Two cars were descending upon me in the rain and dark of a cold January night. Still, I thought I could make it. I pedaled faster; reached the far curb and yanked up on my front handle-bars. I had performed this exact act many times without fail, to hop the curb and continued into the parking lot, and subsequently onto the rest of the way home. On this night my hop was short. I hit the curb with my front tire and bounced back into the road, and the on-coming car.
It’s amazing how everything slows down when faced with a perilous situation. I distinctly remember hitting the curb and then bouncing back. Almost instantly the brand new blue Cadillac hit me broad-side and sent me flying through the air. For the rest of my life I’ll remember turning upside down in the air, and with me upside down as if hanging by my feet my forehead smashing against the vertical street-side part of the curb. I tumbled onto the sidewalk, lay there for just a moment, then stood up. I was a big kid. Already 5-foot 10-inches. I stretched out my full length. My newspaper-carrier poncho fell twisted around my shoulders. And then…gravity pulled me back to the ground. I collapsed and smashed my head again.
Seemingly instantly I was surrounded by caring people asking if I was OK. I don’t know where they all came from. Someone had a blanket and covered me as I laid on the concrete trying to cope with what had just happened. All I could think was, “My Dad was going to be pissed!”. I remember repeatedly apologizing to everyone who was helping me for causing them so much trouble. I couldn’t bring myself to spit out the blood in my mouth. That would have been rude, in front of all those people. So I just swallowed it. I can still taste it.
The ambulance arrived in a hurry. Paramedics quickly began looking me over. They paid particular attention to my right arm. One said to the other, “It looks like he cut it off.” Having not scanned myself. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I couldn’t feel my whole right side. So I thought he was talking about my right hand. Then the same EMT looked me in my eyes and said, “Where else do you hurt?”. “Huh?” I replied. “Besides your hand, where else do you hurt?”. “My right leg kinda hurts.” My leg is where the car had made direct contact.
It was eleven days after Christmas. I was wearing my first ever pair of new jeans. They were Swabbies, with the BIG patch pockets. They were very popular in 1976. And they were the first cool clothes I’d ever had. The first that weren’t hand-me-downs. The EMT took out some scissors and began cutting my first-ever brand new pants. And for the first time I began to cry. The paramedic, a 20-something guy, stopped cutting and asked if he was hurting me. I cried “No. You’re ruining my new pants”.
Shortly after, they hoisted me onto a gurney and loaded me into the ambulance. My leg was badly bruised; in coming days turning purple from my shin to my hip. I had a big bloody scar on my forehead. It looked like the worst kind of floor-burn you might get from taking a charge or diving for a loose ball on the basketball court. Only worse. My bottom lip was split, leaving me with a slight, permanent fish- hook shaped scar. And my hand survived. But my right index finger didn’t. It was completely severed. Fortunately, I was wearing gloves. So the last two digits of my pointing finger didn’t end up on NE 8th Street run over by the many cars that sped by, hurrying home. It was re-attached.
Over the next 3 years I had four surgeries to straighten the finger out, and to get the blood flowing properly. But nothing worked. It’s a bent stump, with a permanently frozen knuckle to this day. And it will be the rest of my life.
I was lucky that night. My head trauma could have been much worse. My other fingers and hand could have been more seriously mangled. And while my clear and sober mind reminds me of how lucky I was, every time I slam on my brakes to avoid hitting a kid too impatient to look and wait for traffic, every time I hear screeching tires, and every time I see a car-pedestrian accident is depicted on TV or in the movies I’m instantly transported back to this nightmare. And it is a nightmare. One you don’t want your children to experience.
Talk to your kids about obeying traffic laws. It’s Summer time and they’ll be out and about a lot more. Tell them to be patient and to cross at the
Me and My Dog Sheiba- My Hand in a Cast behind the dog
cross walk. Tell them to never step in front of a moving car unless you have absolutely made eye contact with the driver and you know they see you. Tell them the pain of being impatient, or of lacking respectful care is too much. Tell them a friend told you how bad it can be.
My severed finger today
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