Exceptional a car The Camry by Wendy Rappeport Share Your Story contest entry

They told me my face was ashen and my eyes open in an uncomprehending stare. I had just struggled out of my seatbelt and wriggled across to get out of the passenger side of the car. The truck driver sighed with relief when he saw I was alive and not injured. I stood there like a scolded puppy, too frightened to move. I was trapped in the moment, my mind full of the noise of the crash and overcome with fear. The truck driver had already alighted from his cabin and his truck was scarcely damaged, with just a small dent in the roo bar, showing the only result from the crash. He walked to my side and asked me if I was all right. ‘Am I all right?’ I wondered but I couldn’t think, only repeat his question. My mind was back there, five minutes before. I had driven up a small rise in the road and was blinded by the sun. I had put my foot on the brake to slow myself until I could see properly. It was probably that deceleration that saved my life. I shuddered to think what could have happened if I was still travelling at 70 kph. The light at the crossing was turning red and the truck had right of way, and I was supposed to have stopped for him, but momentarily I could not see the light or the truck. It was a truck with a trailer laden with metal piping, and I should have been dead. My ears rang with the sound of the crash, smash, metallic collision, and scrunching steel, like screwing up a piece of paper. My poor car had its whole front end concertinaed up against the car frame, the driver’s door was jammed shut and I was aware of smoke all around me. In my struggle for survival, I imagined that the smoke heralded an explosion and a fire, and I frantically edged my way over to the passenger side where the door was easily opened. I just about fell out of the car in my haste, picked myself up, and hurriedly distanced myself from the smoking car. My shoulders relaxed when I suddenly realised the smoke was only from the air bags. I didn’t know if I had screamed but there was also a high-pitched scream resounding in my ears. With little else occupying them so early in the morning, a police car was soon on the scene, and the greedy tow trucks were already waiting. Fortunately, the police had driven from the west on Barber Avenue, the same direction as me and the policemen instantly understood the effect to the glare from the rising summer sun hitting their eyes. My ears were still ringing, but I appreciated the caring questions from the truck driver, a passer-by, and the policemen. They assured me that the crash was understandably an accident caused by the temporary blinding by the morning sun low of the horizon hitting my eyes as the car drove up the rise on the road. As no-one was injured, they left the scene. I watched the tow truck driver load up the wrecked Camry and sweep up the glass on the road. The truck driver was phoning his boss, and he too, soon left the scene. By Thursday, the day after the crash, I ached all over and the painful stiffness in my neck and shoulders and back hampered my movements. As my muscles gradually relaxed and the pain subsided there was the task of buying a new car- another strong Camry.

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