ALIAS saved my life

I have had a lot of moments in my life where I have thought "wow, I could have died right then." Today I experienced the second scariest thing I have ever experienced in my life (don't ask me what the first is).

I got into a car accident today. For those of you who know the area, I was at North Ave and Morton Rd. For those of you who don't know the area, going north on Morton rd I have to cross three lanes of traffic going east bound and then yield in the middle and then cross three lanes of traffic going west bound. There are no traffic lights. My mom HATES this intersection, but it is the fastest way to get to my parent's house. Today I thought about going the "long" way, but I was on lunch break for jury duty and just wanted to get to my parents house so I could eat lunch with Mom.

I was sitting in the middle of North Ave. waiting to cross over and there was a break in the cars so I hit my gas. As soon as I hit the gas I saw a small black car appear behind an SUV that had been turning. Apparently, all the cars hadn't passed yet. I tried to get out of the way of the car and all of it could have been avoided if the driver had actually hit her brakes or turned the wheel even a little bit (or if she hadn't been speeding, but that's another story)-- but she didn't do any of that. I watched the car hit me and the next thing I felt was my car lifting off the ground. My car landed on it's side (the driver's side) and then flipped onto the hood. It all happened in slow motion (esspecially the flipping of the car).

When my car flipped I miraculously did NOT move at all. My body was strapped in securely by my seatbelt. My head never touched the winshield or the roof of my car. My body never touched the stering wheel. My legs never hit the dashboard.

My first instinct was that I had to get out of the car. In every movie or TV show that I have seen a car flip over it always catches on fire. So all I could think was, "Get out before you burn to death!" I was still stuck behind my seatbelt so I reached to unhook it. It was stuck--the very thing that saved my life had now become my worst enemy.

At this point, I went into ALIAS mode. I (don't laugh) asked myself, "What would Sydney Bristow do?" I remembered an episode where she was in a flipped car and she had to push herself up in order to release pressure on the belt. So I used one arm to push myself up as hard as I could and used the other to unlatch the belt. It worked! I fell and made contact with my car for the first time.

My next feat was getting out. The passenger side window has shattered, but there was not enough room to get out. The driver side window was okay. I tried to kick the window out - I kicked once and then thought maybe I should try rolling it down first. So I hit the button and it rolled down (thank goodness). I immediately crawled out the window.

The whole thing was surreal. I got out of the car and walked five or six steps away and then turned around and looked at the sight. My back tires were still spinning, glass was shattered everywhere, and a guy was on his cell phone yelling "is anybody hurt?" I couldn't answer him, I just stared. Finally, he ran over to me and I mustered out a "no" and then realized that two cars were involved in the accident.

I ran over to the woman who had been driving. She was out of her car, shaking and crying. There was very little damage to the front of her car (don't ask me how that happened). I asked her if she was okay and she just walked away from me. Meanwhile, a tow truck who had seen the car flipped, pulled over and blocked traffic for a while. He made me sit in his truck even though I didn't want to sit down. He let me use his phone to call mom. Here's how the conversation went:

"Hey mom, uh, I got into a car accident. I'm OK! I'll be home in a little bit. Don't worry. I'm fine."
"Where are you?"
"I gotta go mom, the police are here. I'll be home soon, the police officer will give me a ride. Don't worry."
*click*

I then called Ari:
"uh, so, I got into a car accident. My car is totalled but I am fine. I just wanted to let you know. I will call you later!"

By this time the ambulence was there and wanting to check me out. They took my vitals, listened to my lungs, asked me if I had any pain...

I was fine. I walked away from the accident without a scratch on me.

I am the luckiest "son of a gun" that I know. I've had a good four hours to reflect on it all and listen to all of this...
I wore my glasses for the first time today in weeks. When I crawled out of the car there were shards of glass everywhere, especially on my face. My glasses were covered in pieces of glass that would have otherwise been in my eyes.

There are a lot of things on top of everything else that I could talk about but Ari just got here and I am going to spend time with him.

One more thing - maybe it wasn't ALIAS that saved my life. The police officer who filed the report said something along the lines of, "Someone must be on your side..." I think she was right.