I almost died yesterday

I almost died yesterday. 

I’m going to break format here at Beans, Bullets, Bandages and You and simply just tell you what happened.

I looked, but I never saw it

I was driving a company-supplied automobile, a late model Chevrolet Cobalt, through a very rural area. I stopped briefly in a small town in North Missouri to obtain some required information from a customer. After getting the information and chatting for a couple of minutes about the weather (they had a couple of inches of rain yesterday), I hopped into the car, pulled out of the parking lot, looked both ways, and then I pulled out onto the road.

That’s when I almost died.

I didn’t see the truck. At all.

I have absolutely no idea how I failed see the bright red one-ton dually pickup truck hauling a gooseneck trailer with a large tractor strapped to it. 

None.

I pulled out, and as I sometimes do I pulled into the oncoming lane of traffic (there was nobody coming for a half a mile) to get up to speed. As I was about two thirds of the way into my turn I hear the blast of a horn and saw the truck PASSING ME. It was RIGHT there.

Had I pulled into the correct lane as normal, this truck would have t-boned me and I would have met my maker… or at best been critically injured. That truck was driving at full speed and it had a large load on it. There was ZERO chance he could have swerved or dodged, there was no time.

I would have died

I would have died. It’s that simple. It would have been entirely my fault (in an accidental way),

After the truck passed me and drove into town (about half a mile away) I followed it. Honestly, I was looking to see if the driver pulled over so I could stop and apologize for scaring the living daylights out of him or her.

You know how it is when some idiot, apparently without looking, pulls right out in front of you, right?

The truck, however, went on, and I’m sure he or she had a story to tell last night about the idiot he almost killed.

Here’s the thing… I looked… 

I really did.

Both ways.

Twice.

I absolutely did not see something that was too big and too obvious to miss. 

When I pulled out, though, I pulled into the oncoming lane (I do this occasionally to get up to speed on these rural roads where people can pull out on you). The thing is, I’ve probably pulled out of that parking area 50 times in the last 30 years. I’ve never pulled into the oncoming lane before.

I told Spice about this, and she has a theory that my subconscious brain saw the truck, even if my conscious brain did not. 

Is this true? I don’t know. It makes sense, but I just don’t know. 

I’d like to wrap this all up with a big conclusion

Truth is? I don’t have one. 

I probably should be dead today, but I’m not. I wasn’t saved by skills on my part or on the other driver’s part. I guess you could say “it wasn’t my time” or “God had other plans” or whatever, but the truth is? I just don’t know. 

I did everything right. I was wearing my seat belt, I used the turn signal, I looked both ways multiple times, and yet when I pulled out I did so directly in the path of a speeding truck that was WAY too close for me to have not seen it. 

Sometimes we survive because we were prepared. This isn’t one of those times. 

Was I just lucky? Was it fate? 

I don’t know. 

In his fine book “Into Thin Air” author Jon Krakauer writes “readers are often poorly served when an author writes as an act of catharsis, as I have done here.” In general, I agree with that, so I apologize if you are reading this and thinking “what on Earth is Salty talking about? 

I guess I’m saying that “you just never know”.

We have spent years prepping, have an organized BOL, we exercise regularly, we have stores, and none of that matters if you pull out in front of a truck when you are driving and get smashed flat. 

But… in the end, it didn’t happen

For whatever reason, I DID pull into a lane without a big truck hauling a tractor in it, I got on with my work day, drove a couple of hundred miles, and made it home without a scratch on my body.

I can’t really say I made it home without a scratch on my mind, though. 

I’m feeling it this morning.