Something I've not talked about before on this blog, just happened to be talking with someone recently and thought it might make a good blog posting.
Back in 1999, I briefly had a Peugeot 205 GTI Gentry Edition. I was never completely happy with the engine. I didn't know at the time that the Gentry Edition had a detuned version of the 1.9 GTI engine. I think someone had tried to un-detune it, and it never seemed to pick up very well.
The reason why I only had it very briefly was that I crashed it. The crash was entirely my own stupid fault. I was young at the time (young and stupid.) I was on the A303, following a car that was going very slow, we went up a hill and a nice straight presented itself, and I went to overtake. What I had completely missed was that from going from bottom to top of the hill (quite a steep hill and large elevation change), the road conditions had completely changed, and - whilst the conditions had been good at the bottom of the hill - it was icy at the top of the hill, so I was overtaking another car with a strip of ice and snowy mush down the middle of the road and at the sides. I realized my mistake as soon as I committed to the overtake, but didn't want to take out the car I was overtaking, so kept my foot on the accelerator in order to get past the car I was stupidly attempting an overtake on. The overtake was successful in that I did get past, but then I lost it. The car span around and went backwards into some trees. This would have been at around 50 mph. As it went backwards it bounced up over the kerb. The bouncing motion sent my head flying through the glass sunroof. My head smashed the sunroof completely. I lost consciousness briefly and regained consciousness with a nasty gash at the back of my head.
I was lucky that the Police did not do me for dangerous driving, but I had learned my lesson (and I have never had a crash - other than parking bump - since.) I was checked over in Salisbury hospital and was perfectly fine, not even any bruising. Miraculous really. Peugeot 205's did not have the best safety record, so a crash at 50 mph could have been quite fatal.
And it would have been fatal if I hadn't had that sunroof. If that sunroof had not been there for my head to smash through, my head would have had nowhere to go. If the impact of my head on a hard unforgiving tin roof had not killed me/broken my neck, I would have - at best - ended up brain damaged and been a vegetable.
On that day, the sunroof saved my life for sure! If it wasn't for that sunroof, I would not be here today. And when you think about things like this, you realize how lucky you are to be alive. How you really cannot/should not take life too seriously. All these things that seem so important now and for the future, if you were dead they would not matter one jot.
"Angels fly because they take themselves lightly!" Be sincere in what you do, but not serious.
Image: A Peugeot 205 Gentry Edition and Life Saving Sunroof!
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