Car Crash, August 4, 1986, by Chris Hesler

From MemoryArchive

Who: Chris Hesler
What: Car Crash
When: August 4, 1986
Where: Liverpool, New York

The day had begun badly. It was summertime and I awoke with a terrible hangover. I set off on foot toward the Sunoco station, as I had neither a driver’s license nor a car. I would have to pump gas until ten that night and then close up the shop and walk home.

It was a busy day, and a hot one. The previous night had involved some enormous quantity of warmish beer and probably a nip or two from the parents’ liquor cabinet; underage drinkers can’t be terribly choosy. Waves of nausea washed over me as I dispensed gasoline and oil, made change, and generally ran around under the midday sun.

Around five o’clock, I’d had enough. Though I hadn’t vomited, I was sure that soon enough I would, and probably on or near a customer at the gas pumps. I asked a co-worker for a ride home.

The guy I asked was high atop a ladder, repainting the steel uprights on the Sunoco sign. He was a goofy guy under the best of circumstances, so it was easy to miss the effects of the heavy-duty paint he’d been inhaling all day. We piled into his car, a 1973 Plymouth Satellite, and headed toward Elmcrest Road.

Elmcrest is shaped like a hockey stick: After a straightaway of some half a mile, it bends to the right into a tree-lined thicket of suburban homes. Halfway down the straightaway, we were doing seventy miles per hour in an area posted at 30. “Don’t worry,” said my driver. “I’ll mellow out when we get near your parents’ house.”

Heading into the turn, and still accelerating, the Satellite began to squeal and fishtail. The rear end slid to the left and the driver overcorrected. We began to skid even more sickeningly to the right. Now in full panic, he turned the wheel hard to the right and we were literally going sideways down the road, with the driver’s door where the grille should be. Because I’d felt nauseous to begin with I hadn’t buckled up. Now I was sliding around on the hot vinyl seat, grabbing at the dashboard and the window pillar. I remember saying, “We’re going to die.”

A second or two later, with unearthly violence, we slammed into a very stout tree. To this day it is the loudest sound I have ever heard in my life. The car met the tree at the hinges of the driver’s door and assumed the shape of a horseshoe, and this was an especially sturdy car. Glass and blood and mangled plastic were everywhere. Inside the car it became unbearably hot.

The first person on the scene was a man who had been on his riding mower not thirty yards from the crash site. I would later hear that one of our headlights had whizzed past his head. For lack of any other option he came running to my side of the car. I yelled at him, “Just open the fucking door!” He tried but could not.

As always seems the case, dozens of people materialized in the moments after the crash. It must have been audible to anyone within a mile in any direction.

I was sure by this time that my co-worker was dead. The tree, the dashboard, the steering wheel, and a good portion of his door were occupying the space where his torso and head belonged. I did not dare to look, but I managed to locate his right hand and placed my fingers in his palm. To my surprise he squeezed them and groaned a little.

The fire department arrived with heroic speed; it was maybe three minutes at most. A friend of mine -- a volunteer for the department -- ran out of the truck with a sort of motorized crowbar and freed me from the wreck in a matter of seconds. I crawled out just in time to see my mother, visibly shaken, being led up to the crash site by a neighbor.

The driver did not get out so easily. As I was taken away in an ambulance the crew was trying to straighten the wreck with two heavy-duty vehicles, one attached to each bumper. Eventually they decided to cut their way in through the roof. A helicopter stood by, ready to whisk him to the Emergency Room.

The Satellite was towed to a local salvage yard. Those who saw it were astonished that anyone survived the crash. Amazingly, the driver also made it, though he smashed up a good portion of his left side in the bargain. Mutual friends say that in the recovery room he was already talking about his next muscle car. I have not spoken to him since the wreck.

Somehow I remained conscious throughout. Anticipating the crash, I had managed to wedge myself into the footwell and against the glove box. The ribs on my left side took the brunt of the impact. And my hangover was gone, replaced by new aches and pains. I had visible blood in my urine for a week or so, and detectable levels of blood for some time thereafter. But I did not break a bone and suffered no lasting physical damage. I still wonder whether I would have fared as well had I been buckled in.