From Terry Doe Today is a time for quiet reflection, limitless gratitude ... and loads of pantomime wincing. Its a just glad to be here day. Yesterday, around 9 am, I was one of an 8-strong band of happy Umarex Boys Club chaps, coasting through the unremarkable Belgian countryside in a splendid liveried minibus, on a motorway en route to Germany. We were off to visit the fine folk of Umarex, play with all the new hardware and enjoy the legendary hospitality of our hosts. It was Mothers Day, and I sat next to Alan, owner of Armex the UKs distibutor for Umarexr and co-sponsor of the trip, my thoughts lost in memories of my dear old mum. Then came the longest and most terrifying few seconds of my life. I felt the bus swerve sharply to the left, followed by a huge impact which sent us hard to the right across all three lanes. The airbags had deployed, all vision now lost in a white powder haze, but I could feel the momentum and I knew another collision was coming. We hit the armco on the hard shoulder, wiping off the front wheel, steering gear, and our forward motion in ten yards of smashing, grinding terror. In the one second of calm that followed the chaos, I asked if everyone was OK, and suggested we got ourselves to safety on the friendlier side of the hard shoulder barrier. Once wed assured ourselves that we were all going to be OK, we began to reconstruct what had happened, and thats when we realised just how lucky wed been. Our rear-left tyre had blown, the first impact was with a concrete barrier, and had we hit it a couple of yards earlier on its wedge-shaped front, it would have acted as a ramp and launched the bus, rolling it at full speed. The bus was limited to 62 mph, but thats more than enough to produce something hideous if you happen to be inside a rolling vehicle. Secondly, the armco barrier wed hit on the second impact was brand new, replaced days earlier after a, fatal, accident there. Had it not been replaced, or had it failed to hold us, the bus would have ended up on a road 30 feet below us. The previous barrier was still down there. Everyone who attended the scene told us its a notorious blackspot and that every vehicle involved had rolled. They, and we, were amazed that we hadnt. As it was, the injury tally among our party was a broken bone in a shoulder, another in a wrist, and the rest of us had a brisk collection of bumps, grazes, aches and unlimited post-crash pains which stiffened and grumbled all the more as time went on. Being proper lads, we dealt with the trauma via the application of continual piss-taking and laughing at ourselves, but there were moments when we silently shook our heads at the recall of it all, and how wed somehow walked away from something that could have been just about as bad as it gets. Were going back in early May to complete our trip. Weve formed an eight-strong crash test dummies club, and our new motto is We dont roll over for anyone! Were all fine, and you can bet were all extremely grateful. Look after yourselves out there, OK?
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 19:12:16 +0000
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