One Mark V Golf GT TDI – Before:

My previous Mark V Golf, don’t have a nice piccy of my (ex)current one.

After:

Driving into work on Tuesday morning a car on the opposite side of the road hit a patch of diesel, lost control, came over onto my side of the road and hit me head on. The good news is, I’m still in one piece :) All limps attached and functioning correctly. The not so good news is I have two stitches in my lower lip, three stitches in my right knee and lots and lots of purple / black / blue coloured bruises on my chest and stomach from the seat belt. Oh and I ache, lots! The other driver involved is fine too. They knew they’d lost control of their car so were able to brace themselves (well as much as you can in these situations). Even so they still have lots of bruising.

Here’s what remains of what hit me (a Mercedes SL 320):

Looks worse than it actually is. The front of their car took the brunt of the impact with no intrusion to the cabin. I wasn’t so lucky and the dashboard did come in slightly and hit my right knee. My burst lip was caused from head butting the airbag. The tyre to the left is not from the Merc, amazingly it’s front tires were completely intact, unlike mine which were both very flat and bent. From the back of both cars you’d be none the wiser, they look fine.

To be honest, I don’t remember a great deal. I have a flash of a black car being right in front me and then I’m off the road on the grass verge, airbags exploded and smoke everywhere. My driver side door was all bent and won’t open. I instead opened the passenger door and literally fell out. The other car had been spun round and was facing the same direction as my car. Debris was, as you can imagine, scattered all across the road. The emergency services were there very quickly to sort things out.

The police are happy that it’s just an accident and it’s now in the hands of the insurers to sort out. Everyone involved has been very helpful, especially the Barnoldswick Ambulance service and Accident and Emergency at Burnley General Hospital (oh and obviously my family (Kate and my Grandparents) and work). It’s a surreal experience. I’m still recovering and seem to have fits and bursts of energy and tiredness. I’m just happy to be able to talk and limp :) You have to say that modern cars are incredibly well engineered. Five years ago I might not have been so lucky!

Edit: In case anyone wonders, both cars were doing approx 30mph each. Goodness knows what it would have been like at higher speeds!

And finally… because this hasn’t been the most cheerful of posts, here’s a couple of cat photos! One of Sleepy Bobcat and the other is of Taco Kitten (no idea where I got it from).

Yay for cats!