Sudden impact....

It was one year ago today when I figured in a car accident at the intersection of Ortigas and Laluza. A speeding Mitsubishi L300 van hit my car directly on the passenger side as I was negotiating a left turn towards Laluza coming from Ortigas. The impact spun my car around 90 degrees, and flung the passenger side glass, whole it seemed, off the window and to the back of my head.

I got out of the car, with blood dripping down the back of my head to survey the damage. I also checked on the other driver who sustained a deep cut in his forehead, deep enough that I thought I already saw bone.

After I talked with the authorities and called a tow truck, I lit up a cigarette and stood there waiting with my other hand covering my head wound with a handkerchief. For posterity's sake, and perhaps as evidence for an insurance claim, I took this picture with my camera phone:

I received a stitch for my head wound, an anti-tetanus shot, and a week-long regimen of antibiotics and painkillers.

That intersection is a definitely an accident-prone area, as I have seen damaged cars sprawled along that area on several occassions, even before my own accident. In fact, just this morning, I passed by an FX Taxi stopped in the middle in the intersection with a badly damaged front end. I guess the intersection just had another victim.

Well, in the year that has passed since the accident, the car has been more or less repaired, and continues to lead a useful existence as my sister's daily driver. I, for a time somehow, lost the desire to drive. It was my first and only major accident since I first started driving regularly twelve years earlier, in 1992. No doubt, sooner or later, I'll be in the driver's seat again. If I can save up to buy a newer car. :-)