Folks, this is about my "consumption" of plastic over the next year. I'm looking at what I have, what I buy, and why I seem to need this hundred and fifty year old man-made concoction more than my mother's fried chicken.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

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.

8 comments:

kate said...

My first thought was "I hope she's OK" and then my ironic second thought was "how much plastic went into saving her life?" I should have placed a bet that you'd think the same thing!!! :)

glad to know you're OK, everyone here is thinking of you! -kate

Kara said...

Glad you are OK Sunnye!!! We are all thinking of you back in beantown!

Juli said...

Wow, that is quite a shake up. Glad to hear that you are OK!

Vickie said...

Wow, Sunnye! So glad to hear you're OK. Must be your hard head (betcha haven't heard that one before!) next time wear a (plastic) helmet when you're riding in a car in the Bahamas.

We miss you - hurry home soon!

Vickie

kristi said...

oh my gosh! ok, my first thought during reading this was, "why didn't her husband get out his plastic keyboard or iphone or whatever was closest and put this info on twitter?!" good grief.

so glad to hear you are ok. i sure wish we could sit down and talk face to face, but i'm grateful to be able to hear your voice here.

Sunnye said...

Thanks Kate, Kara, Juli, Vickie & Kristi!! I just recently drove by the wrecked vehicle (it's on a flat bed close to the airport) and I took photos that I will post soon...

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