Near miss

 Yesterday I almost died. A series of mistakes and happenstance conspired to spare my little family from a devastating car accident. The fragility of life and circumstances is thinner than I care to admit.

Robby's favorite teacher passed away last year and his widow gifted Robby his World War II research book collection. Yesterday was pick-up day so I packed up the boys and we headed to Arlington. In full disclosure, I abhor driving into Arlington and Alexandria. I try to avoid the beltway and 66 as much as possible but sometimes the routes are necessary. With no other route options, we hopped onto 66 and headed into the city.

We were overwhelmed by the sheer number of books that were gifted to Robby. 15 banker boxes, full of research books and materials. We barely fit everything into the SUV, and I am not sure where we are going to store all of these boxes in the house. I have been working so hard to purge things out of the house- adding 15 more boxes to the mix is not helping the effort. But the books mean a lot to Robby so I will figure out where they can be safely stored until we move.

While we were driving home from Arlington I was frustrated because I missed the HOV hot lanes. Frustrated, I decided to keep driving in the left lane so that I could catch the HOV lane at the next entrance. In the meantime, I accepted that my flub was going to put me in more congestion and traffic.

I was driving down 66 going about 70 mph when I saw an accident happen in the opposing traffic lanes. All I saw of the actual accident was the car spin into a barrier. After the initial impact, my eyes were immediately drawn to the tire which was flying through the air. 

The tire bounced in the road median, propelling it even higher into the air. It was close by this point and I was scared. Even though I was driving 70, everything went into slow motion. I saw the tire bounce high into the air in front of me and I knew it was going to come down close to my predicted path. In the few microseconds that the tire was in the air in front of me, I didn't know which way it was going to bounce again. If it went to the left, it was going to land directly onto me. If it bounced to the right, I thought we would be okay. 

With the heavy traffic, dodging and darting out of the way was not possible. I was stuck in my line, going 70 with a rouge tire that may or may not bounce onto the top of my car. I am eternally thankful that the tire bounced to the right, narrowly missing us by crashing into the hood of the car next to me. (Robby was able to see her pull over to the side of the road so we know that the incident was not fatal.)

When I close my eyes I can still see the tire in the air in front of me. I think it is going to be along time before I am truly comfortable driving again.