The trip was a short one, compared to what we had just completed. I sped through Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, enjoying the rare opportunity to be a passenger in a car while the sun is out. We stopped to buy Mexican car insurance at Ajo, AZ for $74. When we crossed the Mexico border I set the book down to take in my surroundings. I had been to Mexico, but never driven across the border.
After a few ill-marked turns in the city and witty group commentary throughout, we reached the outskirts of Sonoyta — briefly slowing and stopping against our will for John to locate a dollar to hand to a girl standing in the road on behalf of the Mexican Red Cross — and headed toward the beaches of Puerto Penasco, only 60 km away. I noted there seemed to be a lot of traffic in both directions on the two-lane highway, which I suppose is typical for 3 p.m. on a Saturday sandwiched between two spring break weeks.
We had the windows down the whole trip, and upon entering the country had turned on a Mexican radio station and turned it up. I was happy. I was in another country with some of my best friends, and we were staying in a mansion directly on the beachfront for a week, reminiscent of my best spring breaks at Hillsdale. Life was good. I didn't even have evals to write.
As a rule, I try to find a way to enjoy life regardless of what is happening, and I'm usually successful. But I'm also always looking for ways to make things better. It's rare I sit back and think "this moment could not be better", and when I do have that thought, I express it.
"Hey John - this couldn't be better, eh? ...unless we had a beer right now."
(I'd been joking earlier about the lack of open container laws in Mexico & lack of enforcement of laws in general.. and by joking I mean testing Eric's reaction to the idea of a passenger having a beer.. I opted to not push it).
John laughed and seconded both emotions, then we both returned to taking in the countryside and anticipating that first beer on the beach.
I was sitting in the middle, so when the minivan ahead jerked severely to the right I had a clear view of the car careening toward us at 70 mph. 140 mph combined. 205 feet per second. My breath caught for a split second and time slowed as I waited for the little black car to snap back into its lane, waited forever, hoping it could complete the most reckless pass I've ever seen. As it flew toward us I got a sick feeling in my gut and recognized an undeniable out-of-control quality as it drifted further across our lane. Like a spaceship piloted by Reavers. Then time started again as Eric swerved violently right.
We missed a head-on collision by inches but had no time to be thankful as we were now flying straight toward a ravine at least 20 feet deep. John later said he knew the second we swerved that we were going to flip. I had more hope. He was right. As Eric spun the wheel back left and we squealed back toward oncoming traffic, all I could do was watch with the type of intense fascination that you would have observing someone flip a coin to determine if you live or die.
All four of us were dead silent during this entire process. The steering wheel was now rotating as fast as humanly possible to the right, and as the tires grasped pavement my hope stuck, too.
*We can get out of this. Everything can still be okay.*
Then the back tires slid and as we became perpendicular to the highway I knew everything was not going to be okay.
When the tires caught and the left side of the Explorer flipped viciously toward the asphalt, I had time for one thought:
"I'm going to die in Mexico."
Thinking back, there was a lot conveyed in that thought. "I'm going to die [on spring break] in Mexico. That's just an easily-scanned headline, a movie subplot. It also included the awareness that my dad would now feel justified in warning me of the danger of my every act since becoming an adolescent. It felt unfair. Unfair to me, my dad, and Mexico. I did not have time to be afraid; my emotions went straight from desperate hope to desolate certainty. My life did not flash before my eyes nor did I have any time to ponder the existential implications of death.
As we slammed into the ground I briefly had the stomach-dropping feel of a roller coaster designed to tear your soul from your body, then I squeezed my eyes shut and ducked my head and lost myself in the sounds of twisting metal and shattering glass. I did not expect to open them again.
When we stopped flipping there was a moment of silence. My eyes were still shut, darkness all around. Then Eric cracked the silence by yelling "is everyone okay?!" An ambitious question, given the situation, but it revived my hope. Maybe I was alright. Maybe everyone was. It's a weird feeling, being alive when you expected to be dead. The ultimate second chance. I snapped into action, yelling "I'm okay" and repeating it ad naseum while opening my eyes and reaching toward my seatbelt. I was moving hyper-fast, with perhaps the greatest sense of urgency I have ever felt. Somehow, we were alive, but all I could think of was a semi-truck bearing down on us in the middle of the highway or the car blowing up with us alive inside.
Roadblock. My seatbelt wouldn't unbuckle. I felt the first hints of claustrophobia. My spirit was dashed further when I realized I was only hearing two voices — Eric's and mine. I looked John's direction and my heart sank. John's face was covered in blood and he was moving like Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan after a mortar lands nearby. But he was alive. I looked up front and saw blood spattered all over the shattered windshield, and Joe unresponsive. Compared to the desperate speed of my thoughts and movements, John looked like he was stuck in slow motion. I began yelling his name and went at my seatbelt with renewed vigor. When the button finally gave was the first time I became conscious we were upside down. I crashed to the ceiling, where blood was beginning to pool, and continued searching for an escape route. The corners of the vehicle were crushed, one side had been driven into the ground, and the air was full of smoke and dirt. Claustrophobia intensified, and I could feel animal terror bubbling beneath the surface. There was no way out. My near-panic was interrupted by John mumbling something about help with his seatbelt. I reached over, now familiar with the pressure required, and released his belt. Now that he was free, I noticed a 10-inch swath of light coming from the window behind him. It was too small, but it was all I could see. I began instructing John to crawl out feet first, and he tried, groggily. It wasn't happening.
I couldn't get around him, and I had no idea what to do next. Then I heard voices outside. Immediately I felt a sense of relief, because if there were people that meant traffic had stopped. I had no idea where the car was relative to the highway, or how much time had passed, or what was happening outside, but looking back it still seems strange to be so terrified of a second car crashing into us. It was certainly influenced by the inability to see anything outside the car. We may as well have been buried alive. When you escape death, secondary risks become urgently primary.
The men outside pried open the front passenger door, and gingerly helped Joe out, who clearly had a serious head injury. They laid him next to the car to immobilize him and Eric clambered out, then I crawled up through the front and out. It was bright outside and I quickly realized my initial fear was misplaced since we had rolled entirely off the highway and into the ravine, with the hood pointing back from the direction we came. The first car I saw gave me a jolt — it was the same car that had driven us off the road. Or was it? Surely it couldn't be. I turned to see John make it way out, and he was quickly swarmed by good Samaritans who helped him to a flat area about 20 yards from the vehicle. We were all out of the car, and alive.
Part Two: The Aftermath
In a major car wreck on a crowded highway in the U.S., the people involved would never have to worry about calling 911, bystander effect be damned. This was Mexico.
Most of the people who had stopped were American, and didn't have cell service. The Mexicans who stopped didn't seem to have phones. Our car had been in a caravan of five cars in our group from Phoenix. I knew at least one of our cars was far ahead of the accident, and at least one was far behind. I was fairly confident Luke, Laura's cousin, was in the next closest car behind us, and I was somewhat sure I'd heard someone say he had an international phone.
So, I took off down the edge of the highway against the flow of traffic, which had stopped completely due to the debris scattered across both lanes. After passing several vehicles I saw the car I was looking for farther down the row, Rachel's car, which Sam was driving. As I ran toward it I was vaguely aware I had a substantial amount of blood on me and had already been ridiculously attired before the crash and probably was unsettling those I was running by. As I became vaguely aware I was vaguely aware of this, it struck me how absurd my self-awareness is. Why can't I just do something without observing it externally? Shouldn't I be able to run to a phone to call 911 without analyzing myself in the process?
As I ran up to the car I saw Luke in the back and Rachel opened her door.
"Do you have an international phone?! We need to call an ambulance."
"That's not your car, is it? That's not you guys..."
"Yeah, that's us, everyone's okay, we need to call an ambulance."
It's amazing how our minds can deny the facts in front of us in the face of tragedy.
They pulled further to the side of the highway and got out. One of the four passengers was Kat, who had been in a head-on collision nine months prior which claimed her mother's life. I was aware of this, and tried to tell her she wasn't needed at the scene. She was determined to help, and was indeed quite helpful. The Golden girls are a strong bunch.
By the time Luke and I got back to the wreckage quite a few people had gathered, mostly trying to help. The police had still not been called, because even those with working cell phones did not have service at that stretch of highway. Odd, considering there is a radio tower in the background of some of the pictures from the scene. Finally, a local was able to get through with his cell and assured us help was on the way. It's very hard for me to approximate the passage of time, but it felt like close to 10 minutes had passed, and at least 15 more before the first Mexican responder on the scene, which was the volunteer Red Cross. Then another 10 for a real ambulance, then at least another 10 for a policeman.
There was a sickening smell that permeated the scene, sweet yet vaguely acidic. I've never smelled anything like it, but it was on my hands and clothes the rest of the day, as well as many of the items salvaged from the wreck. I was told later it is the smell of various car fluids leaking onto the engine and vaporizing, and is present at many car accidents. If I ever smell it again I'm sure I will have vivid flashbacks to the biggest Pi day of our lifetimes.
There were many benevolent acts during the stretch of time from the accident to when the guys were taken off in the ambulance. Strangers, some Mexican but mostly American, with no connection to us put their lives on hold to do anything they could to help. I can't imagine getting through such a horrid accident in a foreign country without the altruistic support of so many..
An American EMT had been driving by and was enormously helpful. I didn't realize until later, but he basically took over the medical management aspect, including bandaging John's shredded right arm and even creating a tourniquet. After ensuring police had been called, I went to check on Joe and John. Joe was on the brink of going into shock, and John was just conscious enough to say "You weren't hurt?" in an incredulous tone that made me feel guilty and I decided I would be more useful elsewhere.
I starting clearing the highway so traffic could resume, figuring it would help the police get there more quickly. Several people joined me and we had it clear within a few minutes. Others were rummaging through the grass and foliage along the highway and in the ditch collecting our belongings that had be flung from the Explorer and depositing everything in a pile nearby. One of the first things I found were John's glasses, without a scratch on them. My phone was brought to me from who knows where, still working, and with the 3% battery remaining I took a few pictures of the scene. Eric is going to use those pictures for his insurance claim.
The minivan behind us was forced to drive into the ditch itself at full speed. Both the minivan ahead and behind us contained small children, and both avoided harm. The driver of the minivan who drove into the ditch was actually a guy I knew from Phoenix — a fellow sand volleyball coach. He is bilingual and was incredibly helpful on the scene since the Mexican emergency responders could not speak English. He even called me a week later to check in with how everything went (a few days before his team beat my team :-/).
In that span of time between calling and arriving, I saw someone else I recognized. The father of a few students I had taught/coached at Scottsdale Prep. Sure enough, there was the rest of the family right behind him. They were on their way back stateside and were eager to find a way to help. We ended up giving them the number of a fellow teacher to contact, and that teacher was able to contact the local hospital and start the process of sending an ambulance 3 hours down to the border to pick up our guys (I was unaware this was the plan for many hours). As they were preparing to leave the scene and complete their mission, the dad came back to me and handed me several large bills "just in case". Turns out I didn't need it and was able to mail it back, but it was a generous gesture. They also kept in touch over the next two weeks to make sure everyone was doing okay.
The closing story might be the most impressive, and requires more scene-setting. So our first two cars had continued on unknowingly. Our third car was totaled. Our fifth car had arrived and turned back to the border in search of a signal to contact the first two cars — to let them know what happened and form a plan. Now, our fourth car left to follow the ambulance to the hospital. Keep in mind that all of these things had happened as people made decisions independently.. it resulted with Eric and I being left at the scene with no way to contact anyone else. Side note: neither Eric or I was ever looked at by medical personnel. Side-side note: all-in-all, looking back and knowing the different paths our extremely large group took in the wake of the emergency, we did quite well.
I had been hoping that the carload that left to make a call would come back and pick us up, but that was not the case. Now the police were telling Eric he had to come to the police station to fill out paperwork. I had the option of going with him or staying with the luggage/gear on the side of the road. A guy named Jay with a big truck had stopped about half an hour earlier and offered to help transport our stuff wherever we needed, whether that was back to the border or on to Puerto Peñasco. He was unbelievably generous and even offered to take the luggage to the house then drive back to the border. Eric and I decided the best plan was for me to go with the luggage, and once I got to the house I could notify the group that someone needed to pick Eric up at the police station.
The main problem now was that I didn't know how to get to the house. We drove to where Jay was staying, an RV campground with his family, found wifi and called the landlord to get new directions. None of those tasks were as easy as they sound. By the time we got to the house it was close to 9:30; I'd been covered in blood for almost 6 hours. I was unable to contact anyone else during my brief wifi connection, and I still didn't know 1) how bad the injuries had been determined, 2) if Eric had contacted anyone to pick him up, or 3) if anyone was still at the house or 4) if the trip itself was still happening, which seemed to depend on 1). I had hit a wall after the adrenaline wore off and I was operating on reserves. When we got to the house no cars were there. Once we got everything unloaded and thanked Jay, I sat on the concrete floor, too exhausted to shower but too conscious of my filthiness to lay anywhere else. Eventually, I found out the first two cars had gone out for dinner, and I found energy to shower. The rest of night was spent trying to fill in the gaps in my information and resting. Eric had ridden back to Phoenix in the ambulance with Joe and John. The 4th and 5th cars had stayed at the "hospital" until the ambulance transfer took place, then stayed at a hotel in Ajo north of the border since it was so late.
I decided to leave the next morning. Getting back into a car was the last thing I wanted to do, but I had to see how John was doing so I just pretended I didn't have a choice. Plus, I could take the other guys' stuff back to them. Joe was released the next day, but John had four surgeries on his arm in the next three days. Once I checked in with him and made sure the proper people had the proper information and were taking the proper steps, I decided to drive back to Mexico and try to relax for a few days. In what was the most-lasting benevolent act, a teacher named Heidi - a co-worker of Eric and Joe - essentially adopted John and visited him multiple times per day when no one else was around. At the end of the week, John's sister flew to Phoenix and helped him fly back to Austin. I finished out the week trying to ignore my survivor guilt and relaxing, mostly successfully, then drove by myself back to Austin.
Part III: The After-Aftermath
I'm not an expert on car wrecks. I was in one other wreck when I was a kid. My mom was driving our Ford F-350 and a car turned in front of us when we had a green light through an intersection. I was sitting in the same spot: back seat middle. I don't remember many details but I had the same experience of seeing it coming, waiting through the squealing tires with an intense fascination, and not being injured. Later, I remember one morning when my mom woke me up by saying my dad was in a car accident and was okay. In the same truck, my dad was driving home late at night on icy roads and had spun off the road and hit a tree. In the months afterward, my dad would often take the longer way home and avoid the site of the accident. I have always been slightly obsessed with efficiency, and even as a young kid I remember wondering why he was taking the long way so often. It was a significant moment in my development as a person, and the humanization of my father, when I made the connection between the route and the accident.
When I was sitting on the floor in the Mexican mansion alone and covered in blood, I started googling data on car accidents. I couldn't believe I was alive, much less uninjured. A few stats I noted in by brief research: only 2% of accidents involve rollovers, but over 1/3 of car accident total deaths are from rollovers. The only type of accident more deadly are head-on collisions, which we narrowly avoided. Seventy per cent of people who die in rollovers are not wearing seat belts. I was also curious about the safety of the back middle seat.. my instinct is that it's the most dangerous in a head-on collision, and safest in a rollover, but I couldn't find data. I just had the strap across my waist — no shoulder belt. I have very little doubt that if we had hit head-on, or rolled into oncoming traffic rather than away, or contained anyone without a seatbelt, it would have been deadly.
In the wake of life-changing experiences, it's easy to look back and obsess over little details that you would have never noticed otherwise.
- Lynzy originally assigned John and I to two different cars, until I pointed out John didn't know anyone else yet and we'd prefer to ride together at first. She quickly switched people around and put us in the Explorer.
- The left backseat was packed with luggage, meaning that I couldn't sit there. Why left?
- I chose the backseat middle. It made sense for John and I both to be in the back, and John is significantly taller than I. It was logical for me to get the worst spot, and I took it.
- Due to the tight quarters and sweaty conditions, every time we stopped and got out caused a hassle to put our seat belts back on. There was one three-mile stretch between getting insurance and stopping for gas where I decided it wasn't worth the hassle.
- Though the accident was not our fault at all, I was SO glad I had not opened that beer in the backseat (it is legal in Mexico btw). Having an open container somehow would have smeared our innocence, in the same way that smoking weed makes someone untrustworthy or wearing immodest clothes makes someone a target for rape. It's not rational, but it's a real perception by large demographics.
When I get into a car now, I think about the safety of each seat in comparison to each type of accident it could get in. There is no solution, but I think about it anyway. I also have started imagining what it would take for the car I'm in to flip over in various situations. When I'm driving on a two-lane highway, I assume every driver coming my way is asleep. Driving home from Phoenix, the last three hours were on two-lanes in the dark. When an oncoming driver turned off their brights, or turned with a curve in the road, I decided they were probably awake and only then was I able to relax. Still, I would much rather drive than be a passenger..
The day before the accident, I was involved in two randomly related conversations with students. In the first, a group of students were geeking out over Pi Day the next day. One girl out the outskirts of the conversation looked at me and said "I don't get why it's such a big deal" and I said "yeah, it's just another day, really". I don't know what it was about that interaction, but she paused and said "I just realized nothing matters, because we're all just going to die". ...I'm unsure how often teachers encounter this type of moment, but it's not the first for me. I have a highly-tuned sense of the importance of this thought, how it is expressed, and how I respond.. and keep in mind this was at the beginning of another teacher's class as I was exiting the room. Hallway conversations are so hard.. "Well, either nothing matters, or everything matters" was the best I could do in parting. I'll try to continue the conversation at some point later. In the second, a group of students was talking about how they want to die. [Yes this is the same day. If you're wondering if this is normal behavior for 7th-and-8th graders... I don't know what normal is.] At one point, one of them asserted she would prefer to die in her sleep, then turned and asked me what I thought. "I would want to see it coming." My tendency toward hyper-self-awareness means that I distrust sleep, the act of turning off my consciousness. And, having nearly gotten my wish, I wouldn't change my stance. Looking back, those conversations seem much more significant.
We like to believe we are in control of our environment, and I would bet I feel that more strongly than most. That's why I prefer to be behind the wheel — I like to be in control; I like to make decisions. It's an illusion, though. Our force of will is nothing compared to a flipping car. A flipping car will crush you as if you weren't there and never think twice. John's arm was shredded with less force than it took to shatter a headlight. Our grasp on this world is weak regardless of how much we exercise our minds or bodies.
From early-Saturday afternoon to late-Monday afternoon, over 72 hours, I thought of nothing else but the accident. My mind had nothing to distract it, and I didn't have time to be distracted anyway. When I was driving back to Mexico Monday afternoon, I was motivated by getting to the house and collapsing somewhere out of sight away from everyone for days. Then Eric called me and asked me to stop by the police station in Mexico to look for the police report. It was almost the straw breaking the camel's back.. I was only functioning because I had promised myself I would stop functioning once I got to the house. Now I was faced with an additional task, and everything in me wanted to turn it down. The problem was, it clearly made the most sense for me to stop as I was passing through. I spent nearly an hour in the town driving around and looking for the police station, asking people on the street, and got nowhere. Not being able to find a police station in a small town.. that's Mexico. Anyway, the point of all this is that as I pulled up to the house, the group was getting ready to play a game of ultimate frisbee on the beach during low tide. All I had wanted for days was to cease acting, end the burden of responsibility, but I couldn't say no to ultimate frisbee. And it was perfect. Everything about it was exactly what I actually needed. Physical exertion after dozens of hours in a car, the joyful appreciation of still being able to run and jump and play, and losing myself in a competitive game. It reminded me stress relief/resetting mentally is an often overlooked benefit of exercise and competition. It also shed new light on the conversation about the value of sports as entertainment, and the discussion about how teams/players respond in the face of tragedy.
From what I've seen, the death of someone close to you or a near-death experience often changes your perception of your life and your priorities. Something about daily life and small unnoticed changes and influences put our minds on cruise control and take us places we never intended to go. It takes a jolt to wake us up. I know someone who was mugged in a third world country at knifepoint and promptly came back and quit his job, because he realized it wasn't what he wanted to do with his life. He had been a teacher. One of the refreshing aspects of this experience is that my mentality has not changed. My approach to life was tested by an experience I could never simulate or imagine, and it passed the test. I'm on the path I have chosen, my priorities are the same, and it's rewarding to have that assurance. More than anything else, I'm overwhelmingly grateful to be alive and exceedingly motivated to live a good, examined life.
