We were heading back from Cork, having had a brilliant weekend (see previous post). We had to stop off in Mountmellick on our way back to collect Ruairi as he was staying with his grandparents. As we came into town past the hospital the car lost grip on a bend. The back of the jeep began to rotate, so I slowed down.   Suddenly the vehicle regained grip and jolted to the right. Now we were still skidding towards the opposite side of the road with the ditch getting closer. To correct this I rotated the wheels back towards the left and the whipped around in a slingshot motion slamming us into a wall on the opposite side of the road with a tremendous BANG!

We had stopped there was silence. “Is everyone ok I asked” Tho a little shaken, no one was hurt. We all got out of the Jeep, I was forced to climb out my window as the vehicle was pressed up against what was once a wall. I hugged Lesley just to know she was safe and reassure both of us that we were ok. A few people gathered and a man appeared from a nearby house offering us tea and somewhere to recover. We gladly accepted. I decided to move the jeep and also see if she was still working.

I turned the key not expecting much but I had under estimated this little jeep. She roared into action not bothered by the fact that she had just brought down a wall and managed to sustain only minor structural damage considering the impact.

So now that my family is safely home and I can look back on this quite traumatic event there are two things to consider, what have I learnt and what am I thankful for.

Well starting with the latter, I am thankful for my son Ruairi not being with us at the time, this thought has been in my mind since the accident and will probably stay there for some time.  I am also thankful that no one was in the garden or walking past at the time of the accident as it scares me to think of what could have happened. A far worse aftermath then just a banged up jeep.

Finally, we were discussing it afterwards and reckoned that the impact would not have been sustained by a car so easily. The height of the wall would have meant a car would have been impacted at a higher point, perhaps smashing windows, crushing doors and possibly sending debris into the car itself. The Jeep on the other hand made contact below the level of its door handles and simply took the wall out from its foundations with one feld swoop, saving us in the process.

This leads onto my conclusion, why I will always have an SUV. We discovered from the nice folk that shared their home and looked after us that this was not the first time a car had crashed here.  No, infact as far as he could remember I was the sixth accident in recent years and that the wall I had destroyed had been rebuilt more than 5 times!   They have been asking the council for years to but up a sign or a ramp to avoid this but their cries have gone un-answered.  I will always have an SUV for one reason and one reason alone, cars can be repaired, walls can be re-built but families…these are the most precious things of all.

We cannot be responsible for other drivers on the road, for the lack of initiative by our government and local councils, nor the simple act of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  You only get one chance to do it right. we must do everything in my power to keep our friends & families safe.

- Drive safley folks -