Wreckamania Recap

It started as a simple trip to Houston for the WWE Hall of Fame andthe 25th anniversary of WrestleMania....

My job doesn't allow me to plan many things in advance- particularly when I'm on call. Designated days off are another story, but when your friends want you to head over to Houston and take in a little wrasslin, and its an 'on call' weekend, it's tough to commit but also tough to turn down. When Thursday hit and I still hadn't been called to work, I figured I'd take the ride over and enjoy as much of the weekend as I could, knowing in the back of my mind that the fun could end at any moment with the ringing of my phone.  Anyway, I decided to drive my work truck and have a bag packed- just in case I got the call.

My friend Joseph has a small house off of I-10 in Highlands, Tx and was out of town for the weekend; he was nice enough to leave us a key so we could crash there on Friday and Saturday night. This way we wouldn't have to pay the wrestlemania-inflated prices for a hotel (its a recession you know).

I exited off of I-10 at the Crosby/Lynchburg exit and headed north on Main Street into the lovely Highlands area. The first light in town turns yellow, then red- so I was the first car in line at the stoplight. A few seconds into my patient wait at the light, something up ahead that catches our eye. Across the intersection from us, a large white truck swerved into the center turning lane nailing a car in the process, then proceeds to continue driving into the oncoming lane and smashes into a second car! It's hard to explain, but after hitting the 2nd car he is now in OUR lane facing us, still about 50 - 60 yards away from us across the intersection. Next, he punches the gas and proceeds to leave the two damaged cars behind him. Keep in mind, this all happened in about 3 seconds.

Now, he's coming straight for my truck at this point and Josh and I start freaking out. As he's approaching and we are screaming all sorts of things that would make my mother angry with me, I'm still figuring that he's going to swerve back towards his right and get back into the south-bound lane that he is supposed to be in. I figured cops were chasing him and he was trying to avoid the light, and he would blow by me and keep going- and that any minute we would see a fleet of cop cars, sirens blasting, in "high-speed pursuit" as the late-great Buford T Justice would say. He didn't swerve back to his right.

He continued to accelerate and ran right into us, head-on. This was probably the scariest few seconds of my life. I literally looked the genius in the eye as he smashed into my truck- he never even blinked or flinched! My view of the guy didn't last long as the airbags quickly deployed. Thankfully no one was in line at the light behind me just yet because despite having the truck in park and my foot being on the break, the impact pushed us about 2 or3 car lengths backwards until we hit another car.

Seconds later a lady comes running up to the passenger side of our truck screaming, "Get out of the truck! Get out of the truck!" I'm thinking, Great, now the trucks gonna explode. That's all I need right now- an explosion. I guess she saw all the radiator fluid that had spilled out of the colliding trucks and the smoke coming from under my hood and assumed the truck was about to blow up. Thankfully, it did not.

Apparently there isn't much to do on Fridays at 5pm in Highlands because the local stores at that particular intersection immediately emptied and within 2 minutes, there were probably 4 cop cars, 2 fire trucks, dozens of spectators and at least one Haz Mat truck. Local boy nails two cars then speeds off into another head-on... This was the highlight of the day for the fine folks over in Highlands.

The cops spoke to the bozo behind the wheel for about 10 seconds before having to help him out the truck. Not sure if it was alcohol or the bag of pills they found on the front seat, or a combination of both, but this guy didn't know where he was at all. Needless to say, they did the cuff him and stuff him routine (Rosco P. Coltrain reference) and he got a free room for the night. I could not help but wonder if this was one of Joseph's new Highlands buddies... then I realized that this clown dressed way to nice to hang out with Joseph Zenner.   

Interestingly enough, the guy was so obviously guilty that the cops never even asked me any questions about the incident. They had so many victims involved and a ton of witnesses, I guess my statement would have just been redundant, never the less it was the first accident of any kind that I've been a part of where I was never even asked to explain what happened.

After an hour of waiting for my truck to be towed, we rented a car and headed over to the nearest drug testing clinic so I could proudly pee in a small cup so that my employer would know that it was the driver of the white CHEVY truck who was loaded up on pills and NOT the driver of white FORD truck.

We ended up catching the Hall of Fame on Saturday night but opted to skip the big show on Sunday; we were getting pretty sore by that point.  With no vehicle to get home, we hitched a ride back to Lafayette with Josh's dear wife Stephanie- bless her heart, she drove all the way over to Texas on a Saturday night just to pick us up.  

It's been a week now and the soreness is almost gone.  If I had it to do all over again, I would go to the hospital next time.  They offered several times but both Josh and I refused to go.  I know all of the reasons that it would probably have been smarter to go and get checked out but I think we just wanted to get out of there and be done with it.  

I am EXTREMELY thankful to be alive and well, it could have been so much worse.  Thanks to everyone for their comments and support- and heads up next time you go to Highlands.