Forgot about this - one night when I was 18 some friends were at my apartment, and we decided to go for a drive (can't remember if it was a specific destination or just boredom). Anyway, there were six of us, and three cars, so that would generally mean two to a car - I started to get in the car with my friend Chris, but he drove off as I was walking toward the car. The douche. Anyway, this was 1983, and everybody was driving a crappy secondhand 70s car, and Chris's car was far and away the crappiest - an old Dodge Colt. Somehow his car became last in the group, and as we were driving on a dirt road outside of Kirksville at some point I noticed that his headlights were no longer behind us. I figured he had just decided to go home, since he'd been in a shitty mood all night anyway, but my friend Alan had a bad feeling and wanted to go back and check, which we did.
We topped a slight hill, and saw Chris's car, upside down with the roof crushed in, lying in the middle of the road. I'll never forget how that looked with the headlights illuminating the wreck through the dust against the darkness of the open country. It was surreal. From the look of the vehicle we all assumed he had to dead. But when we got there, we couldn't find him, and there was a little blood, but not major injury/death level blood. Turns out that his steering had failed, which caused the wreck. He wasn't wearing a seat belt, and so as the vehicle was rolling he bounced first to the passenger seat, and then into the back seat. He was bruised, and cut himself getting out of the car, but other than that he was miraculously unhurt, and had already started walking to a nearby farm house for help when we got to the scene. (Yes, not wearing a seat belt saved his life. Go figure.)
Of course, had I been in the car with him, when he bounced into the passenger seat, he would have just bounced into me instead, and we would have both absolutely been killed.
Thanks for being a moody prick, Chris. It saved both our lives!
