I got to witness a roll-over accident today, up close and (almost) personal. Not far from my house, I-270 merges with I-70, a bit outside St. Louis. 270 merges from the left, while 70 is working through a right hand turn.
Anyway, as I'm merging onto 70 (at 70+), the car just ahead of me (an SUV) apparently didn't realize that the lanes ended, until, well, the lanes ended. Problem was, there was another car in the lane she needed to be in. So there was nowhere to go, and she ended up with the left side wheels all the way in the grass. A quick overcorrection to the right sent her towards the far side woods. Another quick overcorrection back to the left turned her sideways, and rolling down the highway. Right in from of me. Fortunately, I had started to slow before she was even in the grass, and was able to stop, but for that brief moment, I thought I was going to be part of it. A car slows pretty quickly when the wheels are points other than down.
Fortunately the occupants seem to have escaped serious injury. It turned out to be a mother and daughter, driving across country (the SUV had Hawaii plates). They were shaken, a couple cuts, at least, but both were able to crawl out the back window. The father and son were driving ahead of them, and got to watch it through the rear view mirror (I can't even imagine). I made my first ever 911 call, helped direct traffic till the police showed up, and told the state troopers everything I'd seen. It wasn't until 1/2 or so later that I realized I had my cameras with me. I'm glad I didn't think about it at the time, I might've been tempted to snap off a few.
An important reminder to all of us, a moment's miscalculation can change your life in big (and bad) ways. Let's be careful out there!
2 comments:
Yes I agree. I'm so glad you were safe and the others too.
so glad everyone was ok!
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