Post by G on Nov 13, 2008 16:27:02 GMT -5
Earlier this week, my wife decided she wanted me to come down and visit her for lunch at her new job. Since she has been at her new job I have not visited her yet. So I agreed to do it. Unfortunately when I woke up this morning it was pouring down raining. But, she called up and still seemed excited, so I sucked it up and went. Its only a 46 mile trip one way through lots of countryside and swamp land before finally settling at a city on each end of the trip. It rained the entire way badly. But when I got to my wife's job in Suffolk, the rain was as light as it had been the entire time. But it never stopped. Anyway, she had taken an extra hour for lunch so we spent 2 hrs together at lunch. Finally it was time to make the 46 mile trek home. The return trip was much worse. The rain was even heavier. Making matters worse, I have 3 tires on my car that need to be replaced. A month ago on the way to the race, I blew a tire and they said I needed to change all 4, but I didnt have the money and I wanted to make it to the race. So, I didnt get them. I kept hydroplaning numerous times as I went through numerous heavy puddles. Finally I made it to the home stretch which is sort of like an interstate road that would guide me that last 6-8 miles home. As soon as I turned on this road, it felt like my tires had no grip. I drove about a mile down the road and then out of nowhere I felt like I was on ice. Normally I could take my foot off the gas and the tires would re-grip, but not this time. It kept feeling like I was on ice. I had got slow and I had traffic coming up behind me. I did a little bit of a speed up to get back up to a respectable speed, which was still like 5 miles below the speed limit but other cars were going kind of slow too. Once again, the car loses grip again and starts drifting to the right side of the road. I had taken my foot off the gas, but the car kept skating, there was no grip at all. The cars were coming up my back behind not knowing I was in trouble. I had a reaction of wanting to turn it left, but I knew I would have spun out in front of everybody and would have probably caused a multi-car accident. Realizing the car was continually drifting right with my foot off the gas and not regripping, I finally decided to just let it go off the road. I had this grassy field to the right of me and woods beyond that. The grass sloped downward towards the trees. When the car hit the grass, it was just as bad. I was still doing like 40-45 when I hit the grass and the downward slope and the totally soaked ground was not helping me at all. I felt helpless. I was easing onto the brakes and attempting to steer where there wasnt any steering. The edge of the tree line was looming closer. Luckily the car stopped about 8 ft or so from the trees. My car was facing the trees butt end of my car towards the road. A car that was behind me had slowed down and stopped like they were worried I was going to crash. Once they seen I didnt, they high tailed it out. I made a feeble attempt to go backwards, but it wasnt getting traction. It was looking grim. Within 2 minutes a van seen me and stopped. This Navy guy got out in the pouring rain and surveyed the situation. He then became like my coach. I had to go backwards and forwards about 2 dozen times. Sometimes getting enough grip to move a bit of a distance but then getting restuck somewhere else. Everytime I got the car going forward, the grass and mud was so bad, it didnt want to turn left so I could get off the road. It seemed I had better grip going backwards than forward, so I made a readjustment with my car going backwards and almost got my car pointing in the same direction as the road. From there I slowly went forward with just barely a leftward slant. It slowly climbed and the traction closer to the edge was better than the spot I was leaving. As soon as the guy who was helping me seen I was going to make it, he ran back to his van as I was still struggling to get out. He waited in his van to see I made it to the edge of the road and then he drove off. I never even got a chance to thank him for his invaluable help. I felt humbled by the situation and totally lucky not to have hit the trees or had a horrible accident and furthermore, be able to get out of being totally stuck. I hit the road and drove slowly home. Getting home, I got the tire size and a new set of tires are in order. It may be okay for dry driving, but total downpours like we had today, its apparent the car is dangerous in this state. I feel very lucky and thankful things happened the way they did. I wish I could have thanked that guy. He's the most decent stranger Ive seen in a long, long time. I have never hydroplaned off a road before. Ive always felt like I was good in these situations. I honestly felt I did a nice piece of driving not crashing on the road and not hitting the trees. But there was no way I was going to get out of that field without the help I got. I guess there are still good people out there and that was the best feeling of the whole experience.
