Article #1028
|
New Zealand ,Tuesday March 11th, 2003
I was in a horrific car accident and came within a nanosecond of being killed (decapitated). I was playing the tourist guide for my friend Jon who had just arrived from LA. We were driving around looking at some property in the country. At lunch time we stopped in the small town of Huntley on the Waikato River. It was a dismal day, grey, wet and blustery so we parked the car in front of a store and peered from the car to see if we could spot a restaurant close by. Everything appeared normal. I looked in the mirrors to make sure it was safe before moving the car and waited for a large truck to pass us. A split second before it thundered past, there was a terrifying explosion like a bomb going off and my car was flung forward with a tremendous jolt. Simultaneously the windows imploded, shattering inward and showering Jon and myself with glass. There was this strange silence like a moment frozen in time. The glass shards were everywhere. There were powdery bits that seemed to get into my eyes and nose and larger bits that stuck in my hair and skin. It was like being in a slow motion movie watching the truck hurtle past my car with an eight foot metal attachment swinging wildly from the back of it. Apparently the flatbed truck, which was carrying a bobcat in a large cage, did not have the cage door secured. As it passed us, the gate had swung open with its iron door swinging like a giant shovel and literally wiping out the back and drivers side of my car, windows plus doors, and the car's roof. I sat there feeling stunned, as if I had hit a brick wall with full impact, trying to take it all in till Jon came to his senses and got us out of the car. It all seemed like a dream, actually a nightmare. My brain felt numb and foggy. We viewed the damage and realized how close I came to loosing my head! The gate had narrowly missed hitting my head by 6 inches or less. It was at the same height as my head and had swung past it, knocking out the back and side windows plus the supports which hold up the roof of the car . I felt like I had been hit over the head with a sledge hammer, the result of the shock waves produced by the imploding windows. It seemed very much like an explosive device, bomb or dynamite going off in my close vicinity. Anyway, the police were called and while we waited I took the opportunity to tap. I ran the whole event like a movie in my head, recalling the visual, auditory and kinesthetic sub-modalities of the incident. The things that really stood out in my mind as I tapped were:
I was amazed at the results. Not a twitch of fear as I recalled the accident. People were telling me that it was delayed shock. Well, I drove the next day...no jitters, and here it is more than a week later and certainly no sign of delayed shock. In fact I can barely recall any of the shock I felt then, and it is as though the accident happened many years ago instead of last week. The memory of it seems faded and far away.
Rehana Webster, BSc (09)
238-1068
|