Ice Breaker – Wrecked

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It’s Friday which means it’s time for an ice breaker question here on The Stretched Blog.  As you read below and recall my post from yesterday, you may see a common word used in both posts.  The word WRECKED is bringing new meeting into my life these days as I read through Jeff Goins‘ soon to be released book, WRECKED.  I’ll share a teaser video at the end of today’s post and a review post in the coming days.  In the meantime, it’s time for today’s ice breaker question.

(For those of you who are new around here, each week I ask a question – an ice breaker – designed to help us get to know a little bit about each other.  I answer the question in the post, and you get to answer the question by leaving a comment.)

Question:  Describe a time when you wrecked a car (or bicycle…or something else).

My answer:  If memory serves me correctly, I’ve had two car accidents in my life.  Neither of them were fun, but the first one was an especially memorable crash.  Two weeks before my wedding day, I was traveling into Philadelphia to meet up with my soon-to-be bride (Leanne).  I had just spent the night with my college roommate (and best man) at my new apartment, and I was traveling down a busy stretch of highway known in our area as The Roosevelt Boulevard.  I was driving my mint green Ford Taurus which I had recently purchased in an effort to get out of a lease situation on my previous vehicle.  Even though I purchased the car used, I think it only had 5 or 6 thousand miles on it at the time of the accident.

I noticed that traffic coming the other way was stopped as I approached a hill.  You think I would have slowed down, but I didn’t.  As I came up over the crest of the hill, there was a car parked in the left lane.  I tried to stop, but there wasn’t enough time to slow my car.  I was probably doing 50-60 miles an hour when I plowed into the back of this parked car.  My airbags went off, my hood flew open, my car immediately stopped, and I went into shock.  Through the smell of the airbags and the floating smoke that lingered in my car, I emerged from my smashed up Taurus only to discover that the car I had hit was gone.  Yes, it someone drove away and left the scene of the accident.

The police, ambulance, and tow truck showed up.  There weren’t many cell phones at the time, so I had no way of contacting my fiance to explain why I was late.  Eventually, I showed up at our rendezvous location in the front seat of the tow truck.  It was an interesting ride home and an interesting introduction into the two-week period that led up to our wedding.  My car ended up being fixed despite over $11,000 worth of damage.  I’m still not sure why they didn’t total the car.  It was never the same again.  It was WRECKED!

Now, it’s your turn to answer today’s question.  But before you leave your answer in the comments, check out this video about a new book that I’m very excited to share with The Stretched Community:

Related posts:

  1. Ice Breaker – My First Car
  2. Ice Breaker – Good Friday
  3. Ice Breaker – Relax
  4. Ice Breaker – Cars Of Our Childhood
  5. Ice Breaker – Verse of the Day
  • http://deuceology.wordpress.com Larry Carter

    One time I built a ramp out of a car hood. I made it a little higher one day. I flew farther and higher than ever. I had to land, though. And I wrecked. And hurt.

  • http://billgrandi.com/ Bill (cycleguy)

    It was in July of ’09 that a dog took me down on my bike.  It was not a pretty sight nor did it turn out to be.  Ended up with a bulging disk in my neck that required surgery after I lost feeling in two fingers and muscle tone in my left arm. Don’t want to do that again. 

    • http://www.tnealtarver.wordpress.com TNeal

       I was riding with my at-the-time preteen son when a large pack of dogs (and perhaps a pack of large dogs as well) howled and gave chase. I slowed down so Daniel would be in front of me when one dog decided to chomp down on my leg. I stopped and the pack backed down and headed home. We finished our ride and I returned to the scene of the attack to find neither warp nor woof of a single dog. Obviously whoever owned at least one of the dogs saw what happened and decided to sequester the whole bunch away from prying eyes. I wasn’t hurt. I just wanted to make sure the dog had its shots. Hiding the dogs though made me pretty hot under the collar.

      I wish things had turned out better in your case.

  • http://www.theanalogoustruth.wordpress.com/ Arny

    only been in 2 wrecks my whole life…one of which i was too young to remember…and the other just happend this febuarary after my wife’s birthday dinner.  we were pulling out of parking lot…and intersection is sooo weird and bad in down town houston…i didn’t see that 2 interestions were within about 20 feet of each other so i didn’t even notice running red light and bam! got hit on my side!…WE (my wife, 2 kids and in-laws) were all ok…thank God…
    But don’t want that to happen again…never!

  • http://www.tnealtarver.wordpress.com TNeal

    Two Septembers back, Ellen and I headed to Texas in the wee hours of the morning. About 3 hours down the road in Illinois, a big buck darted across the interstate. I slammed into it at full highway speed. The result wasn’t pretty but Ellen and I emerged from the wreck unharmed. The buck wasn’t so lucky (at least, so I was told by the sheriff’s deputy who showed up later. I never saw the thing again after that split second of “Oh … no …!). We duct tape the hood, drove back home, switched cars, and 8 hours after our initial leaving, left again. The car was totaled.