Jesse Medina

Cassie and I were on our way back to Colorado Springs, CO from Price, UT after taking a vacation to visit my dad.  I was a little sleepy so we switched driving and my wife started driving.  After about 45 minutes of driving, just outside Rifle, CO, we had an accident of sorts.

I woke up to screaming and spinning.  The screaming coming from my wife and the spinning being my car.  My wife had hit a patch of slush which caused the car to fishtail at 70 m.p.h. on a wet freeway sending us off the freeway and down the narrow hill beside the freeway with a couple of spins thrown in.  I estimate that we traveled about 250 feet after leaving the freeway before finally coming to a stop.  Thankfully, given the angle we hit the shoulder and the mud slowing our car, we were both fine as was the car, but had we hit at a different angle, there is a very real possibility we would have rolled.

Nobody stopped.

After making sure everyone was okay I hiked up the short, muddy hill to the freeway to flag someone down for help.  A man in a Chevy Blazer stopped, but his help was limited and he ended up getting stuck in the mud, too.  Finally, a police officer showed up and called a tow truck and we both got towed out.  I paid for his towing since he was just trying to help.  For both cars to be towed, the bill came to $500 – ouch!

Perhaps the worst part, though, is that the cop wrote Cassie a ticket!  Citing “Careless Driving” he handed her a $167 ticket.  He has no case, though.  He wasn’t there, there were no witnesses, etc.  And…she wasn’t driving carelessly.  In fact, she had both hands on the wheel, was not eating or drinking, or petting Ace (our dog who was in the backseat).  She was actually going under the speed limit since the roads were wet and she saw slush about a quarter mile before.  So we’ll be contesting that…the audacity!  As if we weren’t having a bad enough day already.

So, crazy day!  But everyone is okay.  Here are some pictures:

Stuck in the mud. This is taken from the freeway, about 50 feet away.

These are our tracks coming from the freeway. We traveled parallel to the road (kind of) and ended up about 50 feet away from it down a slight hill.

The cops...partially helpful and partially not. "Careless driving" - can't believe it.

The other guy getting towed out. Thanks for stopping at least.

And there's us getting towed out. The tow truck driver guy was really nice.

So, yeah.  Things could have been so much worse.  Its a miracle that we didn’t hit anyone else, that we didn’t roll, that neither of us were hurt and that nothing is wrong with our car (actually, there seems to be some grinding by the wheel that we need to get checked out – could be rocks/dirt or worse, but at least its not a problem with the engine).  Altogether, we’re thankful.  Of course we would prefer that this didn’t happen at all, but considering what could have happened, we thank God for the protection that was there.

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