I feel ya, Brother! I had a wreck October of '00, and wasn't quite so lucky!
I was driving down a back street on the way to pick up a part for something I was working on, driving the speed limit, minding my own. Came to a stop sign, and stopped. There was a steep hill on the left side of the street running perpindicular to mine, so when I pulled out, I didn't even see the van speeding toward me. I remember seeing a blur to me left, and stomping on the gas to try to get out of the way.
The van that hit me was one of those huge mom-mobiles with a pointed front bumper, and I was driving a Pontiac Grand Am GT 2-door. It is a rather smallish car. The point in the front of the van struck perfectly in line with my body and the seam of the door. The van was doing in excess of 50 miles per hour. My car was flung sideways 230 feet.
I blacked out for a split second, and came too with stars everywhere. Now I know where the saying came from! As my vision slowly returned from being trapped in a tunnel of darkness, I had to fight with the searing pain in my chest to regain the ability to breathe. I was pinned between the crushed door and the center console that covered the transmission. When we went back to look at the car, the actual width of where I was sitting was no more than about 18 inches, and that was with the *door removed*!
When the rescue team showed up, they scrambled out of the fire trucks, and when they saw the car, I watched every one of them hang their head, and slow their walk. They thought I was dead. When they got to the car, some of them were surprised to see that I was alive, but I heard them mumbling to each other that i would be paralized.
It took 20 minutes from that point to cut me out of the car, and I spent an agonizing 7 hours in the ER without pain medication until they could determine what was wrong. I ended up with a shattered pelvis, my sacrum broken in three places, 6 cracked ribs, and jammed shoulder. My girlfriend, Angela sat beside me the whole time, picking glass out of my face and eye.
Because of what was injured, they couldn't put any kind of cast or anything on me. I spent 1 month on crutches, and walked with a cane for another 3, but I made a full recovery. Thank you GOD!
I had 6 people go with me the following week to see the car in the junkyard. As soon as it came into view, both my Mom and Angela broke down in tears. I have a whole roll of pictures of it. We have one looking down on the car from the top of a van that was parked beside it. It was bowed like a banana. There wasn't a single piece of that car that wasn't bent.
It took me almost a year to quit cringing every time I come to an intersection, and I will still have a mini-panic, when I forget and notice that I am crossing a street.
I am not trying to upstage you Tails. Honest. I think you were EXTREMELY lucky to have escaped unscathed. It kind of makes you feel like that you were saved to serve some purpose. Like you weren't meant to go quite yet, you still have things to accomplish.
I am very glad that we didn't have to experience the loss of a friend. My heart goes out to you, man.
Kindest regards, Jacob
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I feel more like I do now then I did when I got here.
PLUR(RE) ---J---
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God is good
anyways... i spent about 60 seconds of my digicam on my car at the junkyard.. i'm going to convert it into mpeg.. maybe if it's small enough i'll host it on my website.. if nothing else.. i'll put up some screenshots.. 
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