Spinning out, a mere arm’s length from a terrible fate

Newcastle Morning Herald: Four teenagers died in a horrific car crash last night, a few kilometres from their homes and one kilometre from their high school. It is believed the car in which they were travelling spun out of control on the wet road and smashed into a power pole. The teens all died at the scene.

No, it didn’t happen, but I think sometimes that if it had, the news item might have begun like that, with a giant picture of the wreckage, of the little car, if not split in two then wrapped around the pole. Our bodies out of sight for the sensitivities of the readers and our families. There would be comments from shocked people on the street. Maybe even from friends (it’s a small town despite its size, word gets around quickly). Family, maybe not yet.

A bend on the Pacific Highway.

But it was so very close, just a few feet from alternate realities, an arm’s length from life and death. We were lucky. This is what happened.

We were at the end of a night out down the Pacific Highway to either Swansea or Caves Beach to see a band. Coming back round midnight, at the top of the hill near our homes, you could see the lights of Newcastle in the distance and the suburbs in between to the coast. There was a steady drizzle, enough to make the roads greasy.

The night out also filled our veins with bravado. The hill is steep and bends slightly halfway along. Going down, the car speeds up, just a little, just for a laugh, enters the bend and the car takes on a mind of its own. Its puny wheels don’t grip, they skate, and the spinning begins. We shout for dear life, in panic, Hold it! Hold it! HOLD IT! And among the panic, in those ferocious, frantic seconds, a prayer, ‘Get a grip, get a grip, please tyres, grip’.

We were spinning, and spinning, and spinning. Beyond control, round and round we went. It was a tiny car, maybe a Datsun, and it was doing 360s as it slid down the street. We were shouting for it to stop. The car, no bigger than the proverbial bread box, was turning very quickly into a coffin.

It’s said you see your life flash past when death comes calling. I didn’t see mine, little as it was, as we spun towards the flat bit of the slope. I saw my mate lunge across to me in the back seat. And I saw a power pole an arm’s length away as we glided past it.

Can you measure life and death? Yes, it was an arm’s length.

I don’t believe in miracles, have no faith in them, but I’ll say it anyway: miraculously, the car came to a halt in the middle of the road. It was facing the right way. A foot was put to the accelerator, the car moved us towards home.

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