[7] (AutoBio Aug-2002) The Car Crash That Saved My Life – Part 1

On August 1, 2002, it was an uncomfortably hot and humid day in Columbia, South Carolina - which isn’t uncommon that time of year. I was living there that summer after my sophomore year of college, enrolled in full-time summer classes as I prepared to spend my junior year abroad in Nice, France. Due to the heat that day, I decided to drive to class instead of walk. My spirits were light and I was in a good headspace. A few more weeks of finishing up my summer classes and I was off to the Riviera. I was excited about the year to come.

My drive home after class took me down Greene Street - heading towards my apartment in the Five Points neighborhood. Just down the hill from campus, there’s a railroad track crossing Greene. Trains stopped there often, sometimes at a standstill, other times creeping along at a snail’s pace as the train navigated through the city. Sometimes, if I was on foot, the trains would be moving so slowly that I would climb through between the railcars to get across.

So I wasn’t surprised that day when there was a train stopped on the track in front of me as I came down Greene. Just another normal day. I knew of a quick bypass and made a right on Laurens Street. Laurens is a narrow side street that snakes downhill along the tracks to the next block where I could cross underneath the tracks on Blossom Street. I rolled down Laurens and was about to make a left on Blossom when it happened.