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Connections to the past
Mar. 18th, 2009 09:14 amMy first MBA class was last night. And Denise was in it.
Denise is the person who I rolled my car with. And, after digging for a while, I can't find anywhere that I posted about it. I'm pretty sure it happened in February 2002. (Update: it happened in February 2001 before I started LJ) I worked with Denise at Sears - she was in vacuums and I was in electronics. I invited her to go to a Flipp concert with me in Becker. It was slushing out - that frothy mix of snow and freezing rain. The show was canceled but we didn't know that until we got to the venue. Heading back, we took I-94 which is 70 mph speed limit.
Before this, I never knew that you weren't supposed to use cruise control on slippery roads. I haven't since. It makes sense now, but having never thought about it before, I was cruising in cruise control in slushy freezing rain going 70mph on the freeway.
And walked away from it.
Just before the sign that says St Cloud is 12 miles away, there was a slight curve in the road and my car was suddenly facing the opposite direction and sitting on it's roof in the center ditch of the freeway. It slid upside down into the ditch and the snow crashed through my drivers side window. I had small cuts in my face from the glass. Other than that, I was fine.
Denise is about 6ft tall and I don't think the chairs in my car fit her as well as they fit me. We were both wearing seat belts. The force of the spin and roll pushed us back into our seats and I think the head rest was just a little off for her. She managed to roll down her window and we crawled out of the car that way.
It was still slushing out but someone had seen us flip over and called an ambulance. Luckily the people two cars behind us were off-duty EMTs. We sat on the tail-gate of their truck in blankets. They seemed to be the most worried about me because I was bleeding from my head - but I just had those small cuts and was fine. Denise's neck felt funny, though.
I remember them asking me who the president of the US was - to see if I was coherent. I remember laughing and making some comment that I wasn't sure! (This was during the whole Bush/Gore fiasco) I sat in the front of the ambulance - not as a patient, but as a friend to Denise who was laying in the back. She was worried about her neck, so they took us to the St. Cloud Hospital. I remember being just fine through the whole thing - when the county sheriff told me vaguely which auto shop they towed my car to, the ambulance ride, and sitting next to Denise in the hospital. Fine, that is, until I called my parents to let them know what happened. Must be a trigger. As soon as I heard their voice on the phone, I started bawling.
Denise turned out to be OK as far as I found out. Incidentally, it was HER insurance that paid for her hospital trip - not mine. I paid for my car repairs myself and my insurance rates never went up. $1336.16 was the cost of the repairs. Some reason I still remember that number exactly.
That summer I quit Sears and got my internship at Bankers Systems and so Denise and I lost touch.
Until she sat right next to me in my Business Law class last night.
Denise is the person who I rolled my car with. And, after digging for a while, I can't find anywhere that I posted about it. I'm pretty sure it happened in February 2002. (Update: it happened in February 2001 before I started LJ) I worked with Denise at Sears - she was in vacuums and I was in electronics. I invited her to go to a Flipp concert with me in Becker. It was slushing out - that frothy mix of snow and freezing rain. The show was canceled but we didn't know that until we got to the venue. Heading back, we took I-94 which is 70 mph speed limit.
Before this, I never knew that you weren't supposed to use cruise control on slippery roads. I haven't since. It makes sense now, but having never thought about it before, I was cruising in cruise control in slushy freezing rain going 70mph on the freeway.
And walked away from it.
Just before the sign that says St Cloud is 12 miles away, there was a slight curve in the road and my car was suddenly facing the opposite direction and sitting on it's roof in the center ditch of the freeway. It slid upside down into the ditch and the snow crashed through my drivers side window. I had small cuts in my face from the glass. Other than that, I was fine.
Denise is about 6ft tall and I don't think the chairs in my car fit her as well as they fit me. We were both wearing seat belts. The force of the spin and roll pushed us back into our seats and I think the head rest was just a little off for her. She managed to roll down her window and we crawled out of the car that way.
It was still slushing out but someone had seen us flip over and called an ambulance. Luckily the people two cars behind us were off-duty EMTs. We sat on the tail-gate of their truck in blankets. They seemed to be the most worried about me because I was bleeding from my head - but I just had those small cuts and was fine. Denise's neck felt funny, though.
I remember them asking me who the president of the US was - to see if I was coherent. I remember laughing and making some comment that I wasn't sure! (This was during the whole Bush/Gore fiasco) I sat in the front of the ambulance - not as a patient, but as a friend to Denise who was laying in the back. She was worried about her neck, so they took us to the St. Cloud Hospital. I remember being just fine through the whole thing - when the county sheriff told me vaguely which auto shop they towed my car to, the ambulance ride, and sitting next to Denise in the hospital. Fine, that is, until I called my parents to let them know what happened. Must be a trigger. As soon as I heard their voice on the phone, I started bawling.
Denise turned out to be OK as far as I found out. Incidentally, it was HER insurance that paid for her hospital trip - not mine. I paid for my car repairs myself and my insurance rates never went up. $1336.16 was the cost of the repairs. Some reason I still remember that number exactly.
That summer I quit Sears and got my internship at Bankers Systems and so Denise and I lost touch.
Until she sat right next to me in my Business Law class last night.
