giant's dispair

Giant's dispair is what the ambulance driver called the mile or so decline where we wrecked. Pretty flippin' ominous if you ask me. I never saw any sign that said, "devil's elbow/giant's dispair quarter mile ahead, make sure to make all ambulance and wrecker arrangements before descent."

We were following the gps and it was taking us on a short cut to save time. The police officer doing the accident report asked us why we had gotten off the highway because cafe metro was next to the highway we exited. The gps didn't know we were hauling a trailer full of equipment. There was talk of our brakes not being installed properly but I'm sure it was just the steep ingrade that wore the breaks down to nothing. I started pumping my brakes when the roads steepened. Each time I pumped, I had to press further to get a response out of the breaks. Obviously this went on till there was no response and the brakes was touching the floorboad.

I don't think I've ever been so scared in my fucking life. The moment the brakes went out, I just stared down the road and the sharp turn up ahead and tried to think what the fuck can I do here. I could have tried to steer into the tree's or the rockface but I'm pretty sure that would have produced a funeral bill someone would have to pay. So I tried to make the turn. The trailer swung out to our side and that's about all I remember. After the 4runner and trailer flipped once or twice we ended up in a ditch with the trailer on it's side and the 4runner right side up. When we stopped we all looked at each other yelling to see if each other were okay.

Pretty fucking happy no one died in the accident. I can't think of many things more intense than that thirty seconds of my life. I'll write up something for what happened after that, I just wanted to get the accident down while it was fresh on my mind.



Charles H.
LFT