This is an offshoot of the severe weather thread where I posted from the scene of a pileup on the Trans- Canada at Highway 21 east of Calgary.
Start here to go through it :
http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthr...78#post4513278
The day started out with a poor decision. I make money on patients seen and I made the decision to travel Monday morning to Strathmore so that i did not miss a day of income. With a basement development happening, maternity leave closing in, and Christmas coming I made the decision that not missing a day of work was worth the risk. The drive was rough, but I made it.
I decided to reschedule my last few patients and left for home. This is where my next poor decision was made. I knew the roads were bad and still proceeded to travel back to Calgary. I have a relative in Strathmore that I could have stayed with, but I wanted to be home with family and be able to work the next day in Calgary.
If you read the thread posted above you would have heard about chaos that the pileup was. This is where I made a couple good decisions that may have saved my life.
When I came upon the scene (two pickups sideways across the highway) I chose to play it safe and slowly move into the ditch, beside a few other cars, the left side of the highway. I knew I would not get out again, but the alternatives were trying squeeze by on the right and maybe getting stuck in a drift near the guard rail or stay on the shoulder.
The second good decision I made was staying in my vehicle. A few others in the ditch had gotten out and were assessing things. I briefly thought of doing the same.
A few moments later a jeep came barrelling along the shoulder (too fast) and smoked one of the pickups. I would have likely been between the two vehicles had I chose to stay on the shoulder.
A few minutes after that a pickup truck, that had pulled onto the shoulder (about where I would have been), got plowed into by another truck. It then struck the back of my vehicle pushing me forward 8ft. Had I been out of my car I may not be here posting as the pickup landed where I could have been standing, beside the driver side door.
If I had gone right of the original vehicles, there was snow plow that had stopped there. A semi plowed into the back of it. The semi driver should be commended as he aimed for the snow plow (instead of cars ) when he knew he couldn't stop in time. I have a feeling the semi's horn blaring will haunt me for a bit, as I feared he may be coming my way.
I am not sure what compelled me to post this. Maybe it is self-therapeutic. I am personally struggling with how to cope with what happened. I think things really hit me when I made it to my house and broke down into tears as I hugged my wife. I then changed the best diaper full of poop I ever have.
My car is Likely done, I am sore, but Alive. I put myself into a dangerous situation but decisions during that may have prevented it from being much worse.
Please, choose wisely when it comes to driving 1000lb death machines.