On the evening of Superbowl Sunday I was joking around with my buddies at hockey saying that I’d be lucky to survive the week that was about to begin the following morning. At the time I was referring to the fact that I was going to be on-call at work all week, which is always crazy, and that combined with the coming snowstorm meant I was probably in for it. However I had no idea just how crazy things would actually turn out, or that my survival would actually become endangered.
As I got home from hockey that night and turned on the Superbowl (which I had recorded), snow was already coming down pretty hard. I watched the game, which was the most boring Superbowl I can remember, then woke up the following morning unsurprised by the snow that had accumulated. Since my on-call shift was to begin at 9:00am, I felt like I should drive to the office, even though it would have been perfectly acceptable for me to work from home.
I had just checked commute times on Waze and Google Maps – it didn’t look bad at all. So my thought was that as soon as I got out of our neighborhood and onto the main streets, the roads would be fine. I took my normal route over towards Highway 9, but just getting there was really sketchy. I saw a couple accidents on the way, but I figured I would just take it nice and easy. I was in my 2004 Acura TL, which has front wheel drive, and I guess it’s fair to say I had underestimated the conditions because by the time I reached Highway 9 I knew I was in trouble. People were having serious difficulty and were just sliding off the road.
I started out on Highway 9 heading south, and I probably only made it a quarter mile before I had to slow down to nearly a stop. Next thing I know, my car is sliding sideways toward the right shoulder of the road. I tried to drive out of it but it was pointless. Next thing I know, I’m stuck on the shoulder of the highway, and my tires do nothing but spin if I step on the gas. At this point it’s 6:45am and still dark out.
As I’m sitting there, a big black delivery van loses control and starts sliding toward me. I couldn’t move so I just had to sit there and wait to be hit. As it turned out, he literally missed me on the rear by 3 inches, no exaggeration! It was so close you wouldn’t believe it (see photo below). The driver got out and was amazed at how close we came, as was I.
Meanwhile I was still stuck there, and over the next couple hours the same thing happened to me with 4 more cars! They just kept losing control and sliding off the road, right at me, yet none of them ever actually contacted my car. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. My car ended up cornered and blocked by 4 or 5 other cars, many of whom ran into each other, but nothing ever even touched mine.
I spoke to a state patrol officer at the scene who told me they had called tow trucks, which would be here eventually, but in the meantime I had to wait with my car. I had been considering abandoning my car and walking home, but she said my car would be impounded if I did that. So there I sat for 2 hours, calling and texting people to share the details of my situation, as well as making friends with the other folks who were in the same situation as myself. Jessica ended up finding a post on one of her local Facebook groups urging people to avoid Highway 9, and you can actually see my car in the picture they posted!
Eventually the tow truck arrived and I had no choice but to pay him the $200 fee to tow me a whole 15 feet back into the middle of the road. I didn’t know who else to call or what else to do, so I felt like this was my only option. Honestly I was just thankful that my car hadn’t endured so much as a scrape, and that I was able to just go home. So it was a 3 hour ordeal where I went 5 miles roundtrip, and it cost me $200, but I was home safe and sound with nothing else to worry about.
I worked from home the rest of the day, then did the same on Tuesday. Wednesday I decided to drive into work, but stayed on major roads and freeways the entire time. It ended up taking 90 minutes to get there that morning, and another 2 hours to get home that night. Based on that experience, I decided to work from home again on Thursday.
By the time Friday morning came around I was at the tail end of what had turned out to be a very rough week on call. I won’t go into details, other than to say there were a lot of unexpected problems with the website that week, and it was one of the most difficult weeks I’ve ever had. The roads were in good shape that morning, but we knew another big storm was on the way. Meanwhile, I had to hold a meeting that day about some of the stuff that had come up during the week, and I felt it would be better if I was there in person.
I had no trouble driving to work Friday morning, but on the freeway they had warning saying a major storm was on the way, and that evening commutes would be bad. I held my meeting at 9:00am and everything was fine. I could have come home then, but I had another meeting from 1:00-2:00pm, and snow wasn’t supposed to get bad until 4:00 or 5:00pm, so I decided to stay at work, then come home at 2:00.
As it turned out, the storm came early, and at 1:00 I looked out the window to find the heaviest blizzard I’ve ever seen in person. It was coming down so hard I couldn’t believe it. I spoke with a few co-workers and we decided to cancel the meeting so we could all head home immediately. So I grabbed my stuff, went down to my car in the parking garage, then ended up spending 30 minutes just trying to get out of my work. Turned out everyone was doing the same thing as me, and the backup we all created was ridiculous.
I knew traffic was going to be horrible, so here’s where I made a really bad decision – I pulled up the Waze app on my phone looking for a shortcut. I wanted to get home to my family as quickly as possible, and didn’t consider how dangerous it would be driving on anything other than a major road or freeway. My thought was this – roads were perfectly fine this morning and it’s only been snowing for less than an hour. So I waited and waited to finally get off Microsoft campus, then ended up turning into a neighborhood I was unfamiliar with because that’s the way the app was taking me.
I drove slowly through the neighborhood, following a new white Honda Accord, which was 30 or 40 feet ahead of me. The Waze app told me to take the following left turn, which was the same way the car ahead of me was going. As I approached the turn I could tell I was coming up on a hill, but it wasn’t too steep at the top, so I just kept going slowly along. As I started to descend I could tell the hill was about to get much steeper, but the Accord ahead of me was doing fine inching their way down, so I attempted to do the same.
I don’t really know what happened other than my brakes locked up and suddenly I was sliding down the hill like a kid on a toboggan. It was a really heart sinking feeling because you have absolutely no control over the situation, and you know it’s going to end badly. The only question is how bad.
My first thought was “I hope I don’t slide into the car ahead of me” but instantly I could tell my trajectory wasn’t going toward them, it was going towards someone’s driveway off to the left. Unlike most accidents which take place in a split second, I got to enjoy a nice slow motion slide that went on for about 200 feet. The car was gaining speed the whole time, and I remember thinking at one point about pulling the emergency brake, since having my foot on the brake pedal was doing nothing besides causing my ABS to pump, but I opted not to do that because I was afraid it would put me in a spin, which would have been even more terrifying.
I could see that I was heading for some bushes and trees along the edge of the driveway, so my only hope was that I didn’t go head-first into a big tree. As it turned out, I ended up staying to the right of a big tree, only missing it by about 2 feet. I went through a rhododendron bush, then here’s where it got really scary – behind that bush was a rock wall with a 6 foot drop into the next house’s driveway. There was a truck and a small SUV parked in that driveway, but luckily they were parked all the way up at the top. Had they been parked closer to the garage, I may not be here today.
So I went through the bush, off the rock wall, and landed Dukes of Hazzard style in the next driveway! Obviously I was in shock and scared to death, so I immediately jumped out of the car. I didn’t even realize I had hit the parked truck, but as it turned out the damages (for them) were minimal – just a broken tail light and dented bumper. Meanwhile my car was toast. There was cosmetic damage all around, and I can only imagine how the undercarriage of the car had been affected.
I hadn’t even been out there a minute before a woman came running outside frantically checking to see if I was okay. We were both freaking out, but managed to calm each other down, and she invited me inside. Her name is Jean, and all I can say is that this woman is a saint. She is a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines, and she told me that she saw the entire thing happen, and that instantly all her flight attendant training for emergencies kicked in. Allow me to tell the story from her perspective.
“I’m sitting there in my bathrobe on the couch in my living room, talking on the phone with a friend, and watching it snow. Suddenly I see a car start coming down the hill a little too quickly. I see it speeding up and realize it has lost control. I’m explaining this to my friend on the phone, then I see it come through the bushes, over my rock wall, and come crashing into my driveway. I scream to my friend that there’s been a serious accident and I gotta go! I ran to my room to put some clothes on, and all I can think is – Captain we have an emergency! Everyone put your oxygen masks on now!”
Next thing I know, I find myself inside Jean’s house trying to understand what just happened. I’m calling Jessica, and texting people, but I was in shock and not really sure what to do. I was pretty sure I wasn’t hurt, which was amazing, so Jean insisted that I have a seat and a cup of tea. It was all very surreal. One minute I’m driving home, then I’m in the scariest accident of my life, and now I’m in this nice woman’s living room sipping a cup of tea, watching it snow, and looking at my car crashed in her driveway.
I called my insurance company to file a claim, then got routed to roadside assistance to schedule a tow truck to come pull my car out of there. Long story short, I waited around for 2 hours at Jean’s house, before finally getting the inevitable news that no truck was coming, and that if it was okay with Jean, I needed to leave my car there and focus on getting home safely. Luckily she was fine with that, because as I write this on Monday morning, my car still hasn’t moved from her driveway, and probably won’t for a couple more days! We’ve gotten a lot more snow and Progressive is still unable to get a truck out there to pick it up.
Since I didn’t know what I was going to do, Jessica kinda took over for me. She told one of our neighbors at the bus stop about my accident, and they immediately offered to come get me in their nice new 4×4 truck. After a couple phone calls I was able to coordinate things with my neighbor Erik and he came to Jean’s house in Redmond to get me.
In order to stay safe, he kept his truck parked at the top of the hill (the same one I slid down), and we just collected all my things from the car, thanked Jean immensely for everything, and walked up that big ass hill to his truck. He got us home safe and sound, and I gave lots of big hugs to everyone who came near me. I hadn’t been very emotional about it so far, but seeing my kids after a brush with death definitely brought tears to my eyes. Obviously I know what it’s like to lose a father as a kid, although I was much older than my kids currently are, but even before my own wellbeing, I don’t want to put them through what I went through. Getting home to Jessica and the kids was the greatest relief in the world.
I don’t want to be too dramatic about it because the reality was I didn’t even get hurt. I woke up the following morning feeling 100% normal, however it could have been much different. Had I gone head first into a big tree I may not have survived it, or would have been seriously injured. Had I gone over the rock wall and crashed head first into that parked truck, it would have been really bad. I could have rolled the car, or caused an explosion. As it turned out I landed on all four wheels, meaning my car’s suspension and tires absorbed the entire impact. As I’ve said before, I don’t really believe in luck, but I don’t know what to attribute this to. There was a very narrow window/lane for me to safely go through all this, and I happened to be exactly within it. If that’s not pure luck, I don’t know what is, but I’m open to suggestions.
I’ve been joking that getting constantly roughed up while playing hockey is the reason why I wasn’t hurt from the accident, but I don’t know. All I can say is that I feel so fortunate on a number of different levels – I’m thankful that I wasn’t hurt or killed (for my family’s sake as well as my own), I’m thankful that I had such a kind and helpful person awaiting me on the other end of the crash, and I’m thankful that I didn’t cause more damage. If buying a new car is the only inconvenience I get out of this whole ordeal, then I’d say that’s a very small price to pay.
Regarding my car, I’m almost positive it’s going to be considered a total loss. It’s a 2004, but only has 78,000 miles. I’ve taken great care of it, but as with most older used cars, it’s worth more to me than it’s worth on paper. It’s too bad too because I just paid it off 11 months ago. Repairing the cosmetic damage alone would probably cost more than the value of the car, and who knows how bad the undercarriage is? Honestly I don’t want it back anyway, because there are known issues with airbags from that generation of TL’s, and my airbag didn’t go off in the crash!
Buying another new car definitely wasn’t the plan for us considering we just bought a top-of-the-line Honda Odyssey in October, but again, I’m so lucky that this is all I have to deal with. I’ve been researching cars all weekend and although we are unlikely to get snow like this again soon, I’m still almost dead set on buying something with All Wheel Drive. I figure even in the rain AWD will be better, so at this point I’m looking seriously at Audi’s and Subaru’s.
The reality is that Ava will be old enough to drive in less than 9 years, and we already knew we weren’t going to buy each kid their own car. We’re going to provide one car for them to share, so I’m starting to think about buying a car now that I can drive for the next 8 or 9 years, then pass along to the kids. Obviously there’s no guarantee it will work out that way, but that’s what I’m thinking at the moment. With that in mind, I want something safe, reliable, and fuel friendly, so we’ll see how it all turns out.
At this point, although we have rental coverage, I haven’t even been able to pickup a rental car due to the snowy conditions, and my car still hasn’t moved from the original crash location. I can see how based on the events from this week one would think I’m a terrible driver, but the fact is that before this week, I’ve never lost control of a car in any situation, and I’ve been driving for 22 years. I’ve never caused an accident before this, so this is all very new to me. Although I’m not worried about how I may be perceived as a driver, I am being sure to use this as a learning lesson, and I’m determined to not let anything like this ever happen again.
As usual, I’m hard on myself about it and keep thinking about how I could have prevented this. Since there’s nothing I can do to change what has already happened, I hope others can learn from my mistakes. I’m boiling it down to the following:
- Never look for a shortcut when conditions are dangerous. Always take the slow and safe route.
- Never take a route that looks even slightly dangerous just because an app is telling you to go that way, or because the car in front of you is going that way. Use your own judgement and never let anything cloud that judgement when it comes to safety.
- If you know there’s a good chance of dangerous conditions coming soon, don’t even leave the house in the first place.
I ended up taking today (Monday) off work to continue dealing with insurance and tow trucks. I was hoping the car would be out of Jean’s driveway by now, but it’s just not working out that way. So instead I’m enjoying more time with my family and thanking my lucky stars.
The rest of Snowmageddon has been fine for us. The kids haven’t had much school, so they’ve been enjoying playing outside with friends from the neighborhood. We like going for family walks and having snowball fights as well, but Jessica and I are getting a little stir crazy. We can’t go to the gym and are getting anxious to get back to our normal routine.
That’s basically it for now. Jessica is preparing for a busy week at work due to Valentine’s Day, so hopefully the weather is accomodating. The kids are each doing great, and again, I’m just so thankful that things turned out the way they did. Here are some photos from my week of adventure, including a video I took from the scene of the crash.
Before I go I also just want to say thank you to everyone who has reached out to me over the past few days. There’s nothing like a brush with death to realize how loved and cared for you are, so thank you all.
