Gone in a split second

July 21, 2007 · Posted in Uncatagorized

(This article/post was originally posted on www.soupornuts.wordpress.com. All of my older postings/articles will follow in the next few days. I will be posting new articles along the way.)

Recently, I was traveling on the interstate to meet my wife. It had been raining pretty hard for about an hour, but had slacked-up in the last few minutes. I was deeply engrossed in a cd entitled ”Cracking the Millionaire Code“ and was traveling with the car on cruise control.

Without warning, I felt the car give a quick jerk that I immediately recognized as hydro planing. Quickly tapping the brake pedal to disengage the cruise control, I began to feel the car go into a more prolonged slide.

All this, and what followed, occurred in a split second. Without slamming the brakes, I began to slow due to relieving the cruise control. At the same time, a Ford Explorer appeared on my left rear quarter in the passing lane of traffic.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the Explorer experience the same little shudder that I had gone through microseconds earlier. Then, the Explorer began to pass me and drift toward me at the same time. As I was already slowing, I began to pull into the emergency lane without braking too much, while at the same time the Ford began to twist and go into a slide right in front of me.

My mind immediately went into hyper-drive. I could see every possible outcome, but the one that scared me was if the Explorer continued off the road and began flipping and then flipped onto me as there was no way that I could stop in time.

They say your life passes before your eyes in those moments before imminent death, but I must not have been destined to die because all I could see was the lives of my wife and my two daughters.

Thanks to God, the Explorer did not flip back onto the road, but it did flip several times. The occupants of the Explorer survived and everything turned out okay.

The moral:

take nothing for granted – everything you do has consequences
be attentive – your life can and does change “in a split second”
don’t drive in the rain with your cruise control on – you give up control in exchange for convenience