Honest, Officer

Not too long ago (ok, about 10 years ago) a friend of mine and I were driving to visit another friend for the weekend. It was about a 2 hour drive, and I was getting bored in the passenger seat. So while my friend is driving, I get out of my seat and jump into the back. I felt exhilarated! I had moved more than a few inches in a cooped-up car. Ah, the sudden freedom of that act hit us both and my friend wanted a turn.

So back I climb into my seat and hold the steering wheel while she jumps into the back seat, then I slide over into the driver's spot. Eventually she has had enough freedom in the back seat, and climbs back into the passenger seat.

Soon we near a town my friend is familiar with, so she decides she should drive again. Well, we'd done it before, we could do it again. And without a second thought up I pop out of the driver's seat. But as I turn to head towards the back seat, I bump the steering wheel and send the car shooting off toward the opposite lanes of traffic. My friend grabs the wheel, and overcorrects the other direction.

Mind you, I am still half way between the front seat and the back seat, looking out the back window. I feel the car lurch the other direction, then I hear it - gravel under the tires - we'd gone off the road. Then I feel it, but I can't believe it- the car slowly begins to tip - and I think to myself, "we're not rolling, we're not rolling." But indeed we were and we did. We were both tossed around the car like rag dolls. The car made one complete roll and ended up back on its tires. I was on the floor of the back seat, my friend was somewhere in the front.

I asked if she was ok, and the first thing she said was, "no". So I jumped up quickly, got out of the car and went to help her out of the front seat. She was moving ok. And had decided she was actually ok. We both were out and looking at the damage of the car.

She started complaining about a pain in her neck, so we both sat down and rested trying to decide what to do. A trucker came by, and offered to radio an ambulance. My friend didn't want him to, but luckily he did anyway. Another car had pulled over who apparently had seen the whole thing. We knew we were in big trouble. This guy saw "someone half way over the seat between the front and the back". All I wanted was for this man to drive away! Because you see, we had come up with our own story of what happened, and this guy would just mess that story up totally.

By the time an officer came, this "witness" had, gratefully, left. So we were able to tell our story, including why it was we weren't wearing seat belts:

"You see officer, I was driving, and my friend here needed to get some school books from the back seat. So she took her seat belt off so she could reach back there. When she took her seat belt off, I decided to re-adjust mine as well. As she reached back, she bumped the steering wheel and I over corrected sending us off the side of the road and rolling the car."

Well, it was pretty lame. But I guess he must have felt sorry for us, because he didn't give us a ticket.

But wait, it gets better. An ambulance did come. They checked my friends neck out and decided to be safe, and take her to get an x-ray even though she insisted she was fine. (Mind you, it was hurting her. At one point she laid down on the shoulder of the road, and then couldn't sit up again on her own because it hurt too much. So I helped her up).

After some time, and two hospital visits later, they discovered she had indeed broken her neck. Just mere millimeters, and it would have damaged her spinal cord.

She had surgery to put a metal plate and all kinds of stuff in her neck...

And to this day, both of our parents think the story we told the police was what really happened. Well, I guess my parents might know the truth now. :)

- Chel