Weeks 38-41: Did plastic save my life?

As some of you already know, I was in a pretty scary car accident at 10:00 pm on Monday night. I was coming back from an amazing dinner at my favorite restaurant, Tippy's in Governor's Harbor. I was with 3 friends and I was driving until my newly permitted friend asked if she could drive from Rock Sound market to the Cape. I allowed her to do so not realizing that 10 minutes later, she would be undergoing an advanced skill: safely coming out of a hydroplane. Alas, after two severe over corrections with the steering wheel, I found myself hanging upside down and slightly unconscious. I could hear everyone calling my name and trying my darndest to say that I was OK, but the speech part of my brain had temporarily checked out.

My friend unclipped me and I vaguely remember crawling out of the rear window onto the ground. 2-3 cars passed us. I vomitted up what was a lovely dinner of ribs and potatoes. Fare the well blessed pig dinner. I felt much more alert after that, but definitely not all there. The police came before the virtually non-existant emergency services.

So, what does this have to do with the blog? Here are the plastic components that contributed to my incident:

1. The car, which a friend told me that Found On Roadside Dead, Fix Often Repair Daily are 2 acronyms for Ford. I'm not sure what percentage of this 1990 Ford Explorer was plastic, but I can tell you that I had more than a few premonitions about this car. I should have trusted the bad ju-ju instinct. Do you remember the little red & yellow Fisher-Price cars with the black steering wheel? Yeah, that was our car.
2. seatbelt--allowed me the luxury of hanging upside down securely
3. sunglasses--either protected or contributed to my severe head bang
   
4. iPhone--enabled us to call for help and stay in communication with the Island School medical staff for updates.
   
5. Bic pen--allowed the police officer to start filling out a police report before checking to see of anyone was severely injured. I still want to hit that guy. I should have puked on his shoes.
   
6. chair--allowed me to sit down while the doc to took my vitals
   
7. stethescope, eye light thingy, blood pressure cuff--vital signs
8. Bic pen--allowed the doctor to fill out a report
9. toothbrush--allowed me to clean my mouth out after the token "I have a concussion" vomit.

So, did plastic save my life or did (does) it enable me to engage in more risky activities such as driving a vehicle? I realize that plastic, in many ways, has improved the safety of driving, but hasn't it also enabled vehicles to be produced more "economically" and therefore more abundantly, leading to a greater accessibility to people all over the world even in places such as Eleuthera with virtually NO emergency services or advanced life support systems?

I don't know what I'm getting at...maybe this is mild brain damage, but does plastic give us the illusion of safety?

Whatever the case, I am thankful to be alive to write another post.

Thanks for all of your well wishes...I am also thankful for all the amazing people and relationships in my life--thank goodness relationships, life, and love are NOT made of plastic.

Weird. See the infamous explorer in the background? I took this photo not too long after my premonition about this vehicle...self portrait inside my polyplastic tent on a solo camping trip in Rainbow Bay.