You’re sitting there watching TV. The
scene cuts to his wife driving her car on her way to pick up her kids. She
stops at a stop sign. The car moves forward and as she goes to break the car accelerates,
SHE can’t stop the car. The car is speeding down the street towards a busy
intersection as she tries in her panic to stop it. You’re watching in suspense.
What's going to happen? Bam, cut to commercial and the power goes out. That
sucks huh? I think I can help you finish this scene. Read on.
Disclaimer:
This is 100% true and not exaggerated even one bit. So I can barely move my
right leg. According to my brain it doesn't exist, it hasn’t communicated with
my brain in at least 8 years maybe more. The signal does not get there so
whatever movement I had was purely muscle memory. As the years progressed so
has the lack of use in the leg. I have
given up the majority of driving except for the once a day I have to go pick up
my kids from school and to do that I need to lift my foot from pedal to pedal using
my entire forearm. That too has become very weak. It’s not easy to lift a dead
leg with a limp noodle, but I’ve been getting by till now.
So I get in my car like I do every weekday afternoon. That alone took me
5 minutes of struggling and contorting to get the right leg in. I go to move it
with my arm; it was very hard to do. I pull out of my parking spot and start to
make a U turn. At this point I already knew I shouldn’t be driving. I continued
to the end of the block with huge difficulty trying to keep light pressure on
the pedals. 3 blocks down I come to a
stop sign, when I went to put my foot on the gas pedal is where it went wrong
for real. I struggled to move it to the gas pedal and hold it up so not to
speed down the street. I tried to move
it off so I can break again to turn but it wouldn't budge and then just fell
heavy on the gas pedal. It was floored and I was doing 60 towards an
intersection and I had the red light. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't
move my leg. I even let go of the steering wheel and trie3d with both hands to
move the leg and it wouldn’t budge. As I first realized this I started yelling “OH
GOD” over and over. I have never felt fear like this in my entire life.
When people say they saw their life flash before their eyes they are not
talking about a highlight reel of their life. You literally see every possible
scenario that can play out in the next what feels like an eternity but is a few
seconds. All I kept seeing was the red light facing me and the cars crossing the
intersection. I saw myself getting hit from a car on the passenger side and
spinning down the rest of Leveret and let’s just say the outcome wasn’t a good
one. After those three seconds of mental imagery and literally being paralyzed by
fear I found my common sense. I threw
the car into neutral to stop further acceleration and managed to hit the break
with my left foot. I stopped one car length short of the ref light. I put the
car back in drive eased my left foot off the break and made a U turn and put
the car in park. Then I had my nervous breakdown. One saving grace was this
happened right down the street from my parent’s house and my brother happened
to be there. I called him in tears and him and my sister came running.
My worst fear of not being able
to drive has come to fruition. I could’ve hurt or even killed so many people. I
was lucky there wasn’t a car in front of me and no one on the streets. God
literally took the wheel today. I am grateful that my kids were not in the car
with me either. Today was my last day behind the wheel. It's a painful reality to
accept but my glass half full is that I was able to stop the car and my life
was spared and thank God my kids weren't in the car either. Again this is a
completely true story. It felt and sounds like some Fast and Furious shit no
joke. I'm here to tell the story and that's what counts! I am thankful for that
this Thanksgiving. Good night and God bless.
