Lightning strikes twice

The day after Christmas we decided to take a trip to Idaho to visit Annie's family. We were on I-15 just past 5300 South driving in the middle lane. The roads were icy so we were driving about 45-50 mph.

All of the sudden Annie point and says, "Mark! There's a car!" I look and see a car that looks like it's backing out across the freeway. I was so surreal. We found out later that she lost control on the onramp and spun out. Anyway, I hit the brakes as the car was coming in front of us and turned, but it was too late. We hit her and the airbags went off in a cloud of smoke. Our car bounced off to the right side of the freeway and she ended up on the left. Fortunately, neither one of us hit any other cars in the process.

The Altima pre-accident



Altima post-accident. If you look carefully you can see where the other car ended up next to the police truck in the background



A better angle of the damage. The car was a total loss.



A few weeks later we're out shopping for a new car on the day before our first anniversary. We come to an intersection to turn right onto State Street and stop at the red light. The light starts to change and I see all the cars in the lane I'm turning into come to a stop. Everything looks clear so I proceed to make my right turn. Next thing I know there's a honk, I hear a car skidding and BOOM! I didn't even know what hit me. Our car spins 180 degrees into oncoming traffic and as we come to a stop the guy hits our car again by t-boning our car. I guess he wanted to make sure he got us good enough.

Annie is screaming in pain and I yell "Not again!" We're both laying all the way back in our sets because they got knocked back from the impact. Annie had some glass in her eye and starts to shiver cause it's cold and she's going into shock. I put my coat over her and soon after that the EMT's show up. They ask us if we're ok several times. Annie's obviously has a lot of pain in her neck so they put a neck brace on her. When they first tried to get her out of the car it hurt too much so they decide to cut the frame between the doors out.

Next thing I know we're in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital. They have to take Annie's coat off to get her IV started. At first they ask if it's ok to cut it off. Annie just got it for Christmas and really likes it so the answer was a big NO! With some pain we get it off and they start the IV. It worked for a little bit, but doesn't stick so they have to do another one in the hospital. Considering how much Annie hates needles this is not so much fun. At the hospital they check Annie out, give her some nice drugs for the pain and do a CT scan. The CT Scan didn't show any breaks so they let us go home.

After seeing the police report we've been able to reconstruct a better idea of what actually happened. According to witnesses the green Focus (the car that hit us) was driving possible up to 96 mph. There was a car turning left opposite him and they started to turn becuase the light was now red. When they saw him coming so fast they honked and turned back to the middle of the intersection barely missing him. The Focus also swerved to miss the car turning left which put him in the lane we had just turned into. The police report estimates that by the time he hit us he was going 58 mph and we were probably going 15 mph.

Just to give you an idea of what kind of people we're dealing with here: according to the guy who towed us, when the Focus driver's girlfriend was coming to see the accident, she blew by the police barricade at around 50 mph and almost hit the tow guy and a cop. Several officers chewed her out, but didn't give her a ticket for some reason.

Here is the beginning of the Focus's skid marks.



The skid marks continue through the intersection till he hit us.



This is where he hit us. The marks on the road are from his car fluids, but it shows the general direction our car spun out. You can see some glass from the wreck too.



My seat won't move anymore and you can see from the crease in Annie's seat that it broke.



Here you can see the rear impact and where they cut the door out.



What's left of the trunk.


"Air Conditioning"


Our super subcompact car. You can also see the dent to the left of the tire where he hit us the second time.