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Fun Times in Windsor

Last February (2009), myself, Emilie, Jerome, Jon, and Katrina all drove down together to Windsor to compete in Nursing Games. The vehicle was a Chevy Blazer, owned by Jerome's parents and Jerome and I split the drive in half; he drove the first half to Toronto. In Toronto we stopped for the best pizza! (I have no clue what it was called lol). Then from Toronto to Windsor I drove. On the way we made detours to Chatham only to get lost for a bit, but with good intentions of finding a bathroom. After getting our checking all figured out, we went to park in the sketchy underground parking where it was required of me to drive wrong ways on one-way streets and such. We parked and headed up with our stuff to the room we were all sharing. Jon decided that we should go to Duty Free, get booze and just come back to the hotel. So back in the Blazer we went and I drove us to the Duty Free on the Windsor side. We got in and it was like children in a candy store!!! Everything was so cheap! We were STOCKING UP!! When we got to the cash we asked the young cashier if there was going to be high duty on the stuff and she told us it'd probably be 400%!! So, we put it all back! Haha. One thing we didn't plan for was that since we had made it that far we weren't allowed to turn back like we had thought and were forced to go to Detroit. Adventure!....and boy was it ever! At the border, none of us had brought our passports in the car. Emilie and I brought them but since we didn't figure we were going to the States we left them in the hotel. To top it all off...I had no voice and Emilie only has a peeling old health card as id, and the officer asked Jerome if he'd ever been to jail! hah. We were told to pull over and were detained in customs for awhile.  Eventually they called us dumb and let us through. So now we're in Detroit!! I don't know how many people have driven to Detroit, but it's sketchy! Especially at night when you're driving through Mexico Town! SKETCHY!  Jon lets out a scream like I have never heard...and hope I NEVER hear again as long as I live! The loudest and longest, most frightening scream and all of our heart rates skyrocket!  So we keep going for a little bit. We figure, we're across the border, mind as well enjoy it. We drive down the main street to see a little Detroit. It's sketch. Katrina got to see her first hooker. After awhile we decided we should head back to Canada for sleep since we start our vball tournament at 8am. The guard there was really nice and just said he couldn't believe the Americans let us in the country and he didn't know why we didn't wait till morning for our adventure.
We played the tournament and came in 2nd; lost by 2 points! Damn!
On the drive home, I was starting that leg of the trip off and Jerome would take the final stretch from Toronto to Ottawa. Everyone was sleeping in the car except Katrina who was in the middle of the back seat; Jon was behind me, Emilie in the passenger seat and Jerome behind her. Katrina and I were listening to ABBA in the left lane of the 401. The car in front of us kept putting on her brake lights every 10 seconds or so even though I was way back off her. We made it to just outside of Toronto when Katrina says "why does that car keep putting on their brakes?" and I say "I dunno, but there's nobody even close to them." 30 seconds later the car comes to a dead stop in the lane. I SLAM my foot to the floor trying desperately to put the break through the floor. We're sliding and definitely going to hit the car in front of us. Surprisingly TONS of thoughts went through my head in that fraction of a second. I was thinking that I didn't want the girls in the car injured (sorry boys, didn't think of you). I was thinking of Emilie mostly cause she was asleep in the front seat and I didn't want her to get hurt. I wanted to avoid hitting the car in front if at all possible. I even had time to decide whether it was better to go left and hit the margin, or go right (I even checked if there were cars in the lane). Right was clear and so with my foot pressing the brake in the floor, my ass coming off the seat from pushing so hard, we slide right, hitting the back right corner of the car in front.  We ended up in the second lane. The car came to a stop and it was full of smoke from the deployed driver's seat airbag. I still had my foot on the break and both hands on the wheel (despite my fears that my left arm was broken) for fear of getting rear ended and needing to try to keep the car in that lane. Emilie opened the windows to let the smoke out and I asked to make sure everyone was alright.  My door was crush close and a witness helped pull the door from the outside while I push with my feet from inside to be able to slide out. I made sure we were all ok and besides the 4 of them being clearly in shock, I said we needed to check on the other people. I went to see and the first car had two children in the back seat who were laughing and smiling as if they loved the ride the accident put them on. The parents were LIVID. I went back to the others since nobody was injured. When the paramedics came to assess how we were, Emilie told them that my arm hurts (by this point I was able to tell it wasn't broken). I told the medic it was nothing but he told me to take my jacket off so he could see anyways. When I pulled the arm out, it was red and swollen double the size. It was a chemical burn from the airbag powder. They put a wet dressing on it and gave the supplies so we could change it a couple times that night. The car was a right-off. We were taken to the police station and nobody was found at fault. Emilie's parents picked us up and we stayed the night at their house. The next morning we Greyhounded it back to Ottawa cause I didn't think I should be driving a rental car that soon after such a major accident. Just outside Ottawa, the bus slammed on its breaks and we almost got into an accident on the bus! Of course we would! lol. We made it home alive, but that trip definitely was ridiculous!

2 comments:

  1. O yeah! And P.S. I was sued after this by the first car in the accident. Thankfully Saskatchewan Governmental insurance took care of it.

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  2. back home we just call it SGI

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