Walking Away

 I struggled with what to call this post....... Thankful. Crash. Hit and Run. What If. In the end, it doesn't matter. Three of us walked away from a pretty scary and horrible car accident. And that is what matters. The car, the cost, the insurance headache. All inconsequential. While the person that hit us fled the accident, at least four different cars stopped and checked on us which is a good reminder about all the good people out there. 

Analyzing the event does no good, but I have landed in a place of not questioning could I have done anything differently, to one of being thankful that we hit a barrier that was built for impact. That we didn't hit any more cars as we slide across lanes of traffic. That my car did its job and protected us from injury. That no one was severely injured. 

A recap of the event.... We're driving down Highway 36 as it turns into 270.  At the point we were hit, there is a ramp from I25 onto 36/270. We were in the left through lane of 36. The white SUV that hit us was coming up the on ramp on our left and either was choosing to come into our lane at a very high speed or could not make the turn they were taking. In either case, they came into our lane at a point there was to be no merging. Drake was sitting behind me and saw it coming and yelled "Mom" and then there was immediate impact and we slid across the highway. I have no idea if I hit the breaks (Drake and Marshall think I did). I tried to steer and avoid hitting the barrier, but I had no chance and we hit it going at a pretty high speed. The airbags deployed. The emergency system on my car immediately went off and we were connected with someone. The engine started leaking fluid. We were blocking about 2/3 of the exit and could have been hit again. And we walked away. 

thankful for this barrier 

point of impact with the white SUV

bye bye car