Two weeks ago yesterday, I went to catch the film The Blind Beast, which is part of the line-up of this year's Japanese Film Festival. I was there with my colleague, who had alerted me to the festival, and her boyfriend.
The movie was good (and free), better than another festival offering that I'd paid money for to watch. (If you have to know, it was A Snake of June.) But that's not what this blog entry is about. It's what happened after the movie, on our way home, that was unforgettable.
When I think back about it I wonder if it were my fault. The film was screened at the National Museum, which we all know is walking distance from Dhoby Ghaut station. Yet, somehow, I assumed that my colleague would be giving me a lift, because my previous experiences with her were of futile attempts to make my own way back home/to my destination. I didn't even ask her, I just said "Oh, you can drop me at the nearest MRT station". I don't know really know why, actually. I could have very well just walked to the station myself.
Anyway, they being the nice people they are, decided to send me home. Her boyfriend took the wheel, and I took a rear passenger seat. We took the CTE, and it was around 9.20pm. Everyone knows that on CTE the ERP gantry between Jalan Bahagia and PIE is in operation till 10.30pm right? Wrong.
We were on Lane 2, approaching the gantry, and traffic was rather heavy so we were not travelling exceptionally fast. Say, 70 or 80km/h. I remember were discussing the movie in the car, from the director's purpose in making films, to what the film was trying to convey, when I noticed that the Merc ahead of us was exceptionally slow. So slow, it seemed almost stationary.
I leaned forward to get a better look – by then we were maybe about 5 car lengths behind it – and realized it was indeed not moving. "Look out, the car's not moving," I immediately alerted my colleague's boyfriend, noting a slight sense of alarm in my voice. Instantly I felt the car slow as he hit the brakes, but still it was rolling steadily towards the Merc. He just had enough time to utter "Oh no we're not going to make it," before the inevitable took place.
Upon impact we were all flung forwards, then back, and thank goodness I'm a scaredy cat and I always put on a seatbelt even when I'm seated in the rear, because the impact was great enough to send my handphone flying to the front of the car, and for my glasses to pop off my face and onto my lap.
When I opened my eyes again and exhaled, there was a dull ache in my chest, as if someone had used a hammer and hit it against the point where the seatbelt made contact on my skin. The next five or six breaths were equally agonizing, but I remember replying "I'm ok" to my colleague's worried calls of "Is everyone ok?" I also remember a smarting pain on both sides of my hips, which I recognised to be the other contact points the seatbelt had with my body. My tongue felt a bit numb, and so I knew I must've bit onto it during the accident.
After locating my spectacles, and failing to locate my handphone, I undid the buckle of my seatbelt, got out of the car gingerly, and tremblingly joined my colleague and her boyfriend outside the car, where the driver of the other car was also standing.
She was a new driver, panicky because this was her husband's car, and she told us that the car in front of her had slammed on its brakes before the gantry, then drove off after presumably inserting the cashcard. She managed to stop her car in time, but thereafter was too shocked to resume driving, or to even recall what its license plate number was.
I had a look at my colleague's car, a wee vehicle of barely 600cc, and saw that its front headlamps were smashed. The bonnet was a little crushed too, and steam was coming out from under it. There even appeared to be a leak of some sort. My colleague called the police, who said they were sending over an ambulance.
Being on Lane 2, we were obviously creating a bit of a traffic jam, so we had to drive the cars onto the road shoulder. There was an ironic beep of the IU when we passed under the gantry. I remember feeling really vulnerable while waiting for the ambulance to arrive, because I was paranoid that we would cause another accident. My colleague, on the other hand, was exceedingly brave; she directed traffic while her boyfriend was steering the car to the road shoulder.
(Aside: While waiting, we also witnessed another near-accident, in the same lane, for the same reasons, this time with a taxi. Then, two days after the incident, my colleague drove by the same spot again, and saw that yet another accident had taken place under similar circumstances.)
Anyway, to cut the long story short, I got transported to A&E in an ambulance, waited for over an hour to be attended to by a doctor and had various procedures done on me – heart check, several x-rays, an ultrasound and a jab to relieve me of my chest and neck pains (from the whiplash effect). I was wheeled around on a hospital bed for over 4 hours that night. I don't know which ordeal was worse.
I'm much better now, of course – the only physical reminder of that night is the pain I sometimes get in my chest, but it goes away when I take my medication. My dad said I should really write in and complain, that they should erect road signs that signal the upcoming gantries (e.g. ERP Gantry 1km away!), and state the operating timings. But for now, this blog entry shall have to do.
