The high beams flickered and rain lashed hard against the windshield, reducing visibility to near zero, as I drove the Cork Road to Tralee. When the hairpin turn sign flashed to my right, it was already too late. I slammed on the brakes, gripped the steering wheel tighter and overcorrected. The car lunged forward, jerked violently from side to side, before it hydroplaned and slipped down a ten-foot embankment where it struck a century old oak tree head-on.  

            My world went black. 

            Some time later, I awoke. My body felt damp and sticky. As I raised my hand to my forehead and ran my fingers through my hair, I felt two large goose-egg lumps.  Blood oozed through my fingers and a throbbing pain seared through my body.  

            The rain seeped through the broken glass of the driver’s side window, and the cold crisp air slapped my face lifting me from a deep fog that threatened to consume me. 

            A small flicker of a flame and smoke streams rose from under the crumpled front hood. The night was eerily quiet except for the hissing sound of the smashed radiator. 

            I tried to move, but my legs were pinned under the front dashboard, my stomach pushed tight against the steering wheel. I wiggled and wrenched my body back and forth struggling to break free from the twisted metal that kept me trapped.

            My hand reached for the lever to move my seat back. It was stuck. With as much force as I could muster, I pushed back hard against the seat until it finally released.  The seat shot backwards and slammed into place with a loud thud.

            A sizzling poker-hot electrical charge shot up both my legs. My head spun as I struggled to stay conscious.

            I felt like a young fawn as I stumbled to my feet, pitching forward and falling several times before my legs supported me.

            My teeth chattered as I reached back into the vehicle and grabbed my new Anorak, a gift from Gary, my husband, off the back seat. I zipped it up and pulled the hood down tight over my head.  He and our two girls had left the day before to meet up with an old family friend while I stayed on in Blarney with my mother’s first cousins. I had spoken to him before I left and he had cautioned me to be careful of the roads.  I shook my head and mumbled, “I guess you were right”, under my breath.