Trauma T1571

For a short time yesterday I did not have a name; I was Trauma T1571 at the Cumberland Memorial Hospital in Cumberland, Maryland. Before that, I was flown by helicopter off of Highway 68 Westbound. Before that, I was strapped to a backboard and given an IV. Before that, I was cut out of a car with giant pneumatic pincers. Before that, I had a man holding me immobile and shielding my face and legs from the tools the firemen were using to extract me. Before that, a bystander reached his hand through the smashed window just to hold mine and speak with me. Before that I was in the worst car accident I can imagine. By all apparent rights, I should not be typing this right now.

This past week I was at the BuildaBridge Institute in Philadelphia (which was superb, by the way—amazing people and conversations). Yesterday afternoon I drove back from Philly to Morgantown, West Virginia where my parents live…or at least that is what I was attempting to do. Somewhere east of Cumberland, MD, I was going down a grade (there is a long hill there that trucks tend to barrel through). My cruse control was on; I was just going along in the right hand lane (which, for my friends in the UK, remember to switch this…I was in the “slow” lane). I caught a glimpse of something very large in my driver’s mirror and then was suddenly spinning around and all hell broke loose.

I was hit in the rear driver’s side corner by an eighteen wheel truck that came into my lane as he passed me (apparently rather quickly). This spun me around several times and I then became lodged in underneath the trailer of the truck and dragged along the freeway for some distance. Of course, there is not a lot of room underneath a cargo trailer; fortunately, I was driving one of the smallest cars in existence. I was in a Mazda MX-5 (a Miata); the top of the car was shorn right off as I went under. The firemen who cut me out (they had to extract me through the side as there was no way for me to come out upward) said that, had I been in any other kind of vehicle, I would be dead. Actually, everyone that spoke with me could not figure out how I survived. One of the paramedics said he had never seen anyone come out of an accident like that alive (when they arrived on the scene, they immediately called for a helicopter before seeing me); I have some lacerations on my face and arms from all the glass and a sore shoulder and arm. I was not even kept in the hospital overnight. The medic on the flight took some pictures of the scene with his mobile and shared them around the emergency room; I just kept hearing “Damn…dayyymn!” and then people would just come over and look at me (and then say something like “...damn?”). I felt I was playing out the hospital scene in Unbreakable.

As they pulled me out of the wreckage, one of the firemen looked at me and said, “Man, there must be some kind of plan for you.” I have always valued my life and appreciate the blessings of it—but this is a new life. I remember thinking one thing during the accident, “Let me Live!” and I’ve lived—and that means something very special now. I hope to discover more fully what life is—because I’ve been given a chance to continue anew with living.

Also, a news clip here

Update 10 June: my father and uncle went to look at the scene yesterday; from the skid marks, it looks like we may have travelled as much as several hundred feet together before coming to a stop. Thank goodness the truck driver had the presence of mind to keep us both on the road with my car lodged in underneath the carriage.

Update 25 June: I’ve had several hundreds of hits on this post since I put up more pictures of the accident scene yesterday; someone asked to explain further the physics of what happened after I was hit. Apparently, from the description the investigating trooper gave, the truck drifted over into my lane and hit me from behind, this launched me out in front of the semi into the passing lane’s median barrier, my car then ricocheted off the barrier, spun round and went in rear first under the trailer in the passing lane (or wherever it was at this point). Then we all travelled together several hundred feet before coming to a stop. There were more saving graces there; had we gone much further, there is a chance my car would have flipped under the rear tyres and the trailer would have run over me; I could have gone straight through under the trailer, in which case I probably would have flipped over and again down the freeway; the car could have severed the brake hoses under the carriage, this apparently might have caused the brakes to lock down on the wheels—doing who knows what. Again, it happened exactly how it had to happen.

Bitching (abroad and at home)

I flew back from Glasgow to Pittsburgh last evening; I want to bitch for a moment about people bitching about…everything. Americans seem to complain a lot about non-essential matters. I know that these are a limited selection of people I’m observing and, no doubt, I’ve witlessly overheard the same things in other languages around the world—but I’m continually nonplussed with the reactions American travellers have concerning the places they visit. It’s as if everything is not America, then it’s all wrong; excuse me, the point of travel is to go someplace that is not like your home—that’s the point!
I overheard (or was trapped near) several bitching sessions yesterday. Whilst waiting for my connecting flight in Philadelphia, I sat across a middle-aged couple on their way back from holiday (in the Caribbean, I believe; there was mention of islands and they were both browned to a crisp). The woman spoke loudly into her mobile explaining all the woes of the journey; the man sat stone-faced staring off into the distance. She went on about how it rained, things were too expensive, the food was different, there were people speaking languages she didn’t understand, the beach was filled with skinny people (they were both grossly overweight), they should have gone on a cruse instead, there was nothing to do at the resort but sit around, there weren’t enough places to shop, it was hot, on and on and on! Madam, I have a solution for you: Stay At Home! Do Not Leave the Country! If you honestly cannot gain anything from even this limited cross-cultural experience, just don’t attempt it; you are re-enforcing the Ugly American stereotype and we don’t need that at the moment. (The best part was after she hung up, she turned to her husband and said that the person she was speaking with didn’t even ask how the trip was…she just had to tell it all without prompting. Did you consider that this other person might not have wanted to hear your whining?)

There is so much we can learn whilst travelling; yes, it is different and yes there are often difficulties and trials on the journey. Go, see the world and realise you are not the centre of it; realise that the difficulties you face as a traveller are nothing compared to the everyday matters faced by many of the people you are visiting. But, if you are going to have a mental hernia if there is no ketchup on the table or if you feel you must be rude to the locals as a matter of course, don’t go. Stay on your sofa. Watch television. Get fatter. Your carbon footprint for travel is too high in this case.

Okay, I now have that out of my system…onward.

The Revolution

I was just searching for something else…and came across this reply I made concerning a post by Alex Steffen on WorldChanging. (There was also a good discussion on small arms trade that’s worth revisiting as well.) I walked past a Tamil protest in the city today and, once again, am considering the effects of revolutions on revolutionaries and—especially—on people caught in the middle. The comment below concerned The Green Revolution; however, as I think that political and environmental revolutions are closely entwined, the discussion is parallel. The comment:
“Revolutions are rarely bloodless (in the quite literal sense); you and I would have it so. We all discuss ways of positive change; we begin a thousand incremental movements toward a sustainable place for all living things. But as Jonathan mentions above, there are billions of people who are not necessarily thinking about this right now. They are not taking those steps. Our revolution may be velvet; though we must consider all the clouded rhetoric that surround these issues, at least we have the power to discern and determine our futures through “lifestyle choices.” We have in our hands a spectrum of paths that point to any number of futures. But, I fear, there are so many in the world who face a starker and much bloodier tomorrow.

If we are to have any future, the revolution (and I’m using that term without a solid definition here) will come. But, nothing dealing with ideas at such a large scale comes overnight; nothing comes to all of us at once. We’ve begin in the Global North, we take [those] steps (though more slowly that some of us would like to see); we are hopeful these will negate the damages done. We are hopeful that it’s not too late to heal. But, while we change, we ride on a cache of social order and wealth. Most of the South has no such buffer; the revolution will hit them hard and suddenly (we can already see this happening in places with scarce water resources and where food supply is endangered by global warming; the knock-on social effects are apparent).

I say all the above to consider this: You and I know that radical change is needed; we have good hopes of determining what this is and living it out. Though I’m not completely living it now, I hope to do so in the incoming years so that all is well and I am not detrimental to society or the planet. All of “us” commit to this; we manage to become a positive encouragement in our society and change it for the better. Millions of “us” change; however, there are still billions of people on the planet who were not part of this initial revolution. There are still billions operating under “the old systems.” How do we bring the revolution to them?

Alex, you are right, we have the responsibility to dream a new future for the world; it’s not enough to sit tidy at home. I do not think it grandiose to say that we must now think ideas that are better than what humanity has ever thought. All action springs from ideas, we must have the best ideas and inspire people with them.

What ideal world do we advocate? I think we do not yet have anything that would unify humanity to change in the radical way needed. We don’t have, for lack of a better metaphor, a scripture for the future of the world. (Or, perhaps, we haven’t properly interpreted the text written in nature all around us.) I can make the changes needed to save my world; that decision is relatively painless (though it require a complete restructuring of all my thought and action). The difficult part of a revolution is not changing me; the difficulty is generating and disseminating the ideas that change others. How do we shape the ideas of all the people in the world in the short time we have to do so? How do we make the green revolution velvet for us all?”

Should know better

(Sorry I’m posting all these pop culture bits here…will have to get into more “serious” matters soon.)
I saw this video on television earlier today; the lyrics are terribly sad and relate, I think, the feeling that we all have at some time during a relationship. More than anything the lesson we should all learn from this is that, if you are a fairly plain looking English guy, you should just not try it with an spectacularly hot Portuguese woman. If only more plain looking English guys would observe this rule…so much heartbreak would be avoided. (Also, if your hotel room bursts out into flames and your flowers, television and guitar explode—it may be time to forget your relationship woes and flee the scene; there are instructions on the door for evacuation.)

Goth Blugrass

I was listening to Gillian Welch and David Rawlings on the train back from Marseille the other day; I realised that they sing Goth Bluegrass. There is a lot of thematic similarity between the Gothic and the darker elements of Appalachian culture.

And then this is just an outright dark dirge…makes me want to just sit down and stare off deep into the trailer park:

(By the way; these two are spectacular live. I was fortunate enough to see them about ten years ago in Greenville, SC at a small venue.)

EWEC Marseille

I’m back in Strasbourg from Marseille; I was attending the first couple days of the European Wind Energy Conference. This is the big trade show for Europe so all the companies related to wind energy (from those who make little bobs and bits for obscure electrical connexions to the turbine manufacturers) are present and hawking their wares. There were some massive extremely expensive displays (in the, say, half-million dollar range); two of the turbine companies actually bring in the nacelles from a turbine and put them on show! There were also some little booths that looked like high school science projects. Ours was somewhere in-between. We had a big digital display that I created a looping show for (though it was a technical headache figuring it all out; it was three 58 inch plasma screens side-by-side that acted as one very big wide screen). One could see it from far away on the floor and I caught some people sitting at the other stands (some stands had cafés and lounges) staring off at our display. The only problem is that the fellows who made the stand did not build in any provision for ventilation! There are two computers running full on in a cabinet (hot); lamps lighting various panels and pictures (hotter), and the three big screens (there is a reason they are called plasma screens). They got so hot that they warped the vinyl above and beside them; we will have fans installed before the next conference (which is in Houston, so it will probably be hot to begin with). Here is a mobile phone image of the display (I’ve got to get a new digital camera):

A lot of people come over to look at the ZephIR (the Mars lander looking thing) and ask what the heck it is, “Well, sir, it’s a laser anemometer!” The funniest incident was when a group of Japanese people came over and had their pictures taken in front of it. I said, in about a year, the ZephIR will show up in an anime saving the world from invasion.

My only gripe with the conference was that it’s such a tremendous waste. Thousands and thousands of people travel there to attend. Much of the material for the displays gets binned afterward. Lots of energy and material wasted for a “green” conference. There must be some better option for doing these things.

I wish I could have gone to hear the keynote speaker (the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). There was also a premiere showing for The Age of Stupid which I want to make a note to see.

Marseille, as it is on the sea, has a port. We went down to the old port for dinner; the first night, we wanted seafood. Unfortunately, the restaurant we chose was all shellfish (which I am mildly allergic to). The only thing on the menu I could eat was salmon and foie gras…so I ate fish from the North Sea and the liver of an abused goose. I have now eaten three things I’ve never had before coming to France. Beef Tartar (raw hamburger with raw egg and spices), foie gras, and then, on the last night in Marseille, I tried someone’s escargot (which I quite liked). Of course, my favourite food is raw octopus; so maybe that’s saying something about my tastes to begin with.

I took the train from Strasbourg to Marseille and back (better for CO2 emissions…though it’s a long ride across the country). Here are a couple random happenings from the trip:

On the morning I left, I did something I almost never do; at the train station, I purchased a sandwich (a 5 Euro sandwich!) which, when I tasted, did not register as “food.” It had no taste whatsoever and was as dry as paper. So—I threw it away along with its unnecessary plastic packaging. I then found a bakery sandwich place, paid three euro for a fresh sandwich that was excellent (and only wrapped with a napkin).

Police stations in France are called Hotel du Police. I did not know this when I saw one from the train; it rather conjured up images of a convict coming in to serve his sentence only to be greeted by a polite policeman in a hotelier’s uniform. “Ah, oui, messier; we are expecting you. We have prepared a room especially for you and hope you find it to your satisfaction. Please let us know if you have any special needs; towels and sheets are changed once a week…no, I am afraid there is no internet; however, there are four channels on the television in the common room.”

On the train, whenever there is an announcement by the conductor, an electronic notification sounds beforehand. This was apparently not working for the return trip. Before the conductor made an announcement, he would say “dong, dong, dong.”

There is a big difference between visiting or living in a small country where people assume you don’t speak the local language—and a large one where they do. Must work on my French.

I’m loving my office here; right now I’m on my lunch break—sitting by the big windows overlooking the street. There is a general strike today; so a lot of people are out walking about.

By the way, I’ve found a flat. Clean and orderly (the two primary components) and still near to my work. I’ll move in tonight and can then get to the actual “settling in” part of things.

Travail

I’m not sure why, but many stories of travel and cultural experience all seem to come round to the subject of laundry. I suspect it’s because there is a great shared human response to living three days past one’s last pair of clear underwear.
Last night, after work, I found a local laundromat; I went their assuming that it would have either a change machine or tokens. (Why would I assume that? What possible reason would I have?) Of course, there were neither of these things; the washing machines needed a pair of two Euro coins to operate and the dryers would only accept fifty cent pieces. With a ten Euro bill in hand, I stepped into a nearby convenience store thinking that, if I purchased something, they would give me my change back in coins. So, quite cleverly, I bought a small box of laundry soap (this would help in the case of language difficulty). The clerk spoke English though…however, his tray was out of two Euro coins. The next stop was a kebab shop (right next to the laundry). The fellow there spoke no English; but he took one look at the detergent under my arm, smiled and gave me change. I would imagine he has a steady stream of foreigners in this predicament (will have to make a note to go there for lunch someday).

After a bit of deciphering, I managed to get the washing machine running and, forty minutes later, I had clean clothing! However, as I began to put it in the dryer, the woman tending the place said, “no; sorry; no time; closing; down street is other wash.” So I walk down street to other wash—which was also closing.

Here in the Strasbourg office, Natural Power analyses wind flow over complex terrain with the aid of a little rack mounted supercomputer…which blows out a lot of heat…all day long. One of my main concerns with energy is the conservation and creative use of waste; so…I hung my wet laundry all over the server.

Then I got an e-mail about a potential flat and went to look (I’m going to take it; nice fellow and good space. It’s just a short term place but at least it will give me a place to be whilst I look further). When I came back to the office the outside doors were locked; I have the keycode, but the door was fully locked with a key (which I don’t have). Claude, a kind co-worker, took me in for the night. I’m sure the cleaning lady, when she came in this morning at six, was rather bemused to find socks and underwear hanging all over the server and break-room.